Cornell Aniversity Library

THE GIFT OF

GAYLORD

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S57 526

WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

BY

ANNA BOTSFORD COMSTOCK, B.S.

LECTURER IN CORNELL UNIVERSITY EXTENSION
ILLUSTRATOR AND ENGRAVER OF THE ‘‘ MANUAL FOR THE STUDY OF
INSECTS,’’ AND OF ‘‘ INSECT LIFE,” BY JOHN HENRY COMSTOCK

BOSTON, U.S.A.
GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
1908

\. VY Qe 4

CoPYRIGHT, 1903, BY
ANNA BOTSFORD COMSTOCK

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

TO
ALL THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN MY GOOD COMRADES AND
FELLOW LOITERERS IN NATURE’S BYWAYS
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

Cornell University

Library

The original of this book is in
the Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024557526

ILLUSTRATIONS BY
W. C. BAKER AND
0. L. FOSTER, AND
THE AUTHOR

PREFACE

THE stories in this volume were written with the
definite purpose of illustrating the great primal truth
that wherever there is life there are problems confront-
ing it; and that the way of solving these problems
has been the way to success in the evolution of a
species. The writer has hoped to depict also, in some
measure, the dignity of life’s upward struggle, however
humble the incarnation.

No excuse is offered that the facts herein given were
not ascertained through original and personal investi-
gations; the object of the volume is not to give new
facts, but rather to give another standpoint for viewing
the facts already known. Yet the reason for selecting
these particular stories out of a world full is that I
have read chapters of them with mine own eyes, and
- have been able here and there to add something not
before recorded. The complete story of the Ceratina
was brought to me page by page from the fields by my
husband for my daily entertainment while I was pros-
trated by a tedious illness. The Little Nomad was my
special chum during a summer vacation. The Seine

Maker is a water sprite that has lured me to various
vii :

vill PREFACE

indiscreet excursions to the middle of swift streams.
And the crickets, bees, wasps, and ants have been
our boon companions for many a happy summer and
autumn.

“The Story we love Best” was published in the
Saint Nicholas magazine in June, 1889. “The Perfect
Socialism,” “ Pipers and Minnesingers,” and portions of
“Two Mother Masons” and “A Sheep in Wolf’s Cloth-
ing” were printed in different numbers of the Chautau-
quan during the year 1898. “A Tactful Mother” and
“A Dweller in Tents” were written for the young
readers of the Observer in 1897, and “Hermit and
Troubadour” appeared in the Cornell Nature-study
Bulletin for June, 1899.

I wish to acknowledge the courtesy of The Century
Co., of Dr. Theodore L. Flood, of Dr. Edward F. Bige-
low, and of the Cornell University Nature-study Bureau
for cordial permission to reprint these several stories.
I also wish to acknowledge the helpfulness of Mr. W.
C. Baker and Mr. O. L. Foster in obtaining for me
suitable illustrations. And I wish to express my thanks
to Miss Mary C. Dickerson for the use of Figs. 21 and
26, and to Miss Mary E. King, whose direct assistance
has enabled me to prepare this volume for publication
at the present time.

ANNA BOTSFORD COMSTOCK.

Irnaca, N.Y., April, 1903.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. Privers Anp MINNESINGERS . : ‘ ; é 3 3 3

Il. A Lirrte Nomap. : . , F ‘ , é . 29
Ill. A Sueer 1x Wo r’s CLotruine . : : j ‘ . 39
TV. Tue Perrect SocraLism. : ¢ ‘ : 2 » 59
V. Two Motuer Masons : ‘ ‘ : 3 : - 96
VI. Tue Story we Love Best ; : é : : . 108
VII. A Dwetier 1n TENTS : ‘ : : 3 : . 119
VIN. A Tactrut MorTuHer . ‘ A : ‘ : : . 125
IX. A Seine Maker . : 3 . : : : : . 133

X. Hermit and TROUBADOUR . . ‘ ‘ : . 140

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

A Country Highway that leads past Wood and Orchard. By O. L.
Foster . ;
Antenna of Male ere : : ae : : i : 8

The Lyreman. An Arboreal Wooer ; ; : ‘ . a HAL
Meadow Grasshopper é , : i - (17
Wing-cover of Male Meadow oe Showing Musical
Organ . : 4 : : ; ‘ 5; , : vo AS
Wing-cover of Female Meadow Gaasshorper. Not a Masical
Instrument . . : ‘ : 3 : : : ‘ » 8
A Katydid . : ; : : ‘ . : : . 19
Musical Instrument of the Katydia é : F : 2 a 20
Ear of Katydid . ; : é ‘ 3 ; ‘ : : - 20
Wing-cover of Male Cricket : : ‘ to “2B
When the Afternoon Shadows in the Orchard ferme a W.C.
Baker . : ‘ F ‘ ‘ ; ‘ 5 d : » 23
Ear of Cricket . ‘ : ‘ ‘ 2 : : : é . 24
Snowy Tree-cricket . ‘ : . : r . 25
A Restful, Woodsy Path. By 0 O. 1. Foster. ; ; : . 28
Twin Maples. By W. C. Baker ; ? ; . 3l
Maple-leaf Cutter. Moth and Camping- gion of Ccisiitas . 82
Caterpillar of Maple-leaf Cutter enlarged : : . 383
Tent Ropes of the Maple-leaf Cutter. Camera Lucida Sketch . 84
A Lilliputian Mud-turtle . : ; : . 36
The Home of the Young Viceroy. By W. ©. Baker : : . 40

xi

xil ILLUSTRATIONS

A. Young Viceroy Caterpillar. B. Winter Home of Viceroy Cater-
pillar. By Mary C. Dickerson

“So humpy and spiny that no bird would touch him”

‘An uneven morsel” .

The Viceroy

The Monarch : : ; : : :

“ Smug-looking Caterpillars.” By Mary C. Dickerson

Olden Cities. By W. C. Baker

An Ant Town. By W. C. Baker ‘

An Ant Cow-shed. By M. V. Slingerland .

The Dwelling of a Wasp Commune. By W. C. Baker

Neighborly Communes. By O. L. Foster

Some Bush or Tree near a Stream. By W. C. Baker

“A fidgety being” F

The Jug Builder and her Nests ‘ : : 3 :

“A raspberry bramble, low trailing, and graceful.” By W. C.
Baker .

Little Carpenter Bee and her Nest

A Basswood Tree. By W. C. Baker

A Basswood Leaf rolled into Tents ..

The Tent-dweller ‘

Head and Two Thoracic a oheity of cnet gitice of P. limata

Moth of the Basswood Leaf-roller

Lace-wing Fly and her Eggs, Larva, and Cocoon

The Haunts of the “ Water-sprite.” By O. L. Foster

A Seine and the Fisherman’s Hut

The Wider Levels. By O. L. Foster : ‘ ; :

The Home Tree of Little Hermit Brother. By W.C. Baker .

“‘Good-by now to cowl and robe ”

PAGE

42

50

"pIVyOIO pue poo, ysed speoy yeqy Avmy Sy AUNTD VW ‘T ‘ONT

WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

‘I

PIPERS AND MINNESINGERS

E are wont to speak of
“the silence of the
night” or “the silence
of the woods and fields.”
We find such silence
restful and soothing

2 when we are weary of

the din of cities and the noise of crowded thorough-

fares. Yet if the listener in the summer meadows
or summer darkness be analytic, if his ear be
attuned to the harmonies of nature, he will dis-

cover that the air is filled with the soft music of a

vast orchestra — music so continuous and so monoto-

nous that it seems rather to belong to earth’s silences

than to earth’s sounds. Few of us realize how

oppressive would be utter silence; and few of us

comprehend the debt of gratitude that we owe to
4

4 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

the little fiddlers in the grass, the drummers in the
trees, and the pipers in the air. There is cheer in
their music, as well as restfulness. Their fugues
afford companionship, and at the same time inspire
in us a comfortable sense of isolation and peace.

The subject of insect music should not be dealt
with as a purely scientific study, for it has been
closely connected with the poetry of the ages. A dis-
cussion of these little musicians would be incomplete
without reference to the impression they have made
upon the poet mind, which ever reflects, intensified,
the experiences of humanity. Among those poets
who really take us into the fields some have paid
tribute to our insect friends. But among the vast
hordes of insects only a few have been chosen as fit
subjects for song. These favored ones are butterflies,
moths, flies, bees, fireflies, dragonflies, cicadas, grass-
hoppers, crickets, katydids, and beetles. Of these
twelve kinds of msects it will be noticed. seven are
musicians, and are almost invariably mentioned in
connection with the sounds they make, as “the
buzzing fly,” “the droning bee.” All this proves
that our literary people are better at listening than
at seeing; for to the naturalist there are many other
insects that press more deeply into the realm of poetry
than do these.

PIPERS AND MINNESINGERS 5

It is true that the great majority of our species
of insects are silent. The few insects which make
sounds do not have true voices. As insects do not
breathe through their mouths, but through holes ar-
ranged along each side of the body, they naturally
possess no such arrangement for vocalization connected
with breathing as we find in our larynx.

The sounds made by insects may be divided into
three classes: first, sounds emitted to frighten the
foe; second, sounds made in connection with flight;
and third, true love songs. The insects making
sounds of the first sort are few; they make clicking
or grating noises and clearly do not belong to the
musical tribes.

The buzzing and droning notes given off by insects
when flying may be accidental or may be of some
significance to the insects; we really know very little
of the methods or reasons for these songs. . When
we hear a certain buzzing we are just as sure that
a fly has been caught in a spider’s web as we are
after we see the remonstrating little victim. But,
whether or not this noise is of any use to the fly, we
do not know. Those of us who have had experience
with bees know very well by their buzzing whether
they are happy, distressed, or angry; we know, too,
that they are well aware of each other’s emotions ;

6 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

but whether they gain their intelligence through
hearing different sounds, as we do, is a matter not
yet settled. We know, however, that the piping of
a young queen in her cell, just before a second swarm
emerges, excites the whole colony greatly; thus we
have evidence that bees are sensitive to at least one
sound.

The older naturalists made futile experiments to
discover whether the sounds of the bees and flies were
involuntary and caused simply by the vibrations of the
air made by rapid motions of the wings; or if the note
given off was caused by air expelled from the spiracles
against the vibrating wings, on the same plan as the
note of the jews-harp. Recent investigations seem to
show that the vibration of the walls of the thorax, as
well as the vibrations of the wings, cause the sound.
As for myself, I prefer to believe that the mellow hum
which pervades the air of midsummer afternoons is a
voluntary hymn of praise for sunshine and blue skies.

THe PrIrers

The poets have not been generally complimentary
to flies. Tennyson, in one of the most bitter stanzas
of “ Maud,” says: —

“Far off from the clamor of liars belied in the
hubbub of lies

* * * * * *

PIPERS AND MINNESINGERS 7

Where each man walks with his head in a cloud
of poisonous flies.”

Shakespeare alludes to them several times in much
the same spirit.

Of all the members of the families of flies, the
mosquito has received most personal attention from
the poets; perhaps because she has been lavish in
personal attentions to them. Bryant has deemed her
worthy of a separate poem, in which he recognizes
her as a fellow-singer : —

“Thou’rt welcome to the town; but why come here
To bleed a brother poet, gaunt like thee ?

Alas, the little blood I have is dear,
And thin will be the banquet drawn from me.”

How much we might enjoy the song of the mosquito
if it were not associated with the unwilling yielding
of blood to the singer is problematical. Perhaps if
Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony were always to be
played in our hearing when we were occupying the
dentist’s chair, we would soon become averse to its
exquisite harmonies. Therefore it is no wonder that
we do not think of music at all when we hear the
distant horn of the mosquito; instead, we listen with
patient exasperation as the sound grows louder, and
we wait nervously for the final sharp “ zzzzz”’ which
announces that the audacious singer has selected a

8 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

place upon us which she judges will be a good site
for a pumping station. We do not like her noise a
whit better even though it be a love song.

The mosquito is an exception to all other msect min-
nesingers, for she is the only one among them all that
belongs to the female sex. The lover for whom she
sings 1s a quiet, gentlemanly fellow who never troubles
us, as he has no taste for biood; he may be found upon
the window-panes, and may be recognized by his
feathery antenne, which stand out in front of his head
like a pair of pompons. The physicist, Professor A. M.
Mayer, performed some interesting experi-
ments which seem to prove beyond doubt
that the antenna of the male mosquito
are organs of hearing. Figure 2 shows
one of these antenne. It will be noted

ie. 2. that each segment bears a whorl of hairs
Antenna of and that these whorls diminish in size
Male Mosque toward the tip of the antenna. The
experiment was as follows: Professor Mayer cemented
a mosquito to a glass slide without injuring him, and
observed him through a microscope while an assistant
sounded tuning forks, varying in pitch, in different
parts of the room. The note from a fork of low pitch
caused the basal whorl of hairs to vibrate; a note from

a higher key caused a whorl of hairs nearer the tip to

PIPERS AND MINNESINGERS 9

vibrate. Thus Professor Mayer found that the range
of one of these antenne extended over the middle and
next higher octaves of a piano. From this it seems
that this insect is equipped to enjoy the music of his
lady; not only this, but, as was shown by further
experiments, he is enabled to tell in what direction to
find her. The large globular basal segment of the
antenna has been found, on dissection, to be an audi-
tory capsule.

If poets have found little to enjoy in the buzzing of
flies, they have been most appreciative of the other
wing-singers, the bees; the allusions to their soothing
strains are innumerable. The song of

“The golden banded bees
Droning o’er the flowery leas ”

seems to have been comforting and dear to humanity
for many centuries. The poetic literature devoted
to bees is much larger than that given to any other
insect, and at the same time more casual. They are
constantly alluded to as companions of the flowers,
and are, in the poet mind, an essential part of bloom-
decked meadows and hillsides. Their peaceful hum is
the background against which clover and fruit blooms

are painted.
“The blossomed apple tree,
Among its flowery tufts, on every spray,

10 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

Offers the wandering bee
A fragrant chapel for his matin lay.”

Thus Bryant finds the bee a ‘“‘ Fellow Worshipper.”
The bumblebee has ever been a favorite with Amer-
ican poets. Emerson has thought her worthy a separate
poem, in which he pays this tribute to her music : —
“Hot midsummer’s petted crone,
Sweet to me thy drowsy tone

Tells of countless sunny hours,
Long days, and solid banks of flowers.”

Tur MINNESINGERS

To the minnesingers belong the insects which sing
in order to facilitate their wooings. These are all
of the masculine gender and are provided by nature
with various sorts of instruments, upon which they
play for the delectation of their ladies, who are mostly
shy, silent creatures; however, they seem to have a
very appreciative and, at the same time, a very dis-
criminating taste for music. The first of the insect
troubadours which we will study is the cicada.

This musician is no near relative of the other love
singers, as he belongs to another order of insects alto-
gether. He is an interesting-looking fellow, with a
stout body and broad, transparent wings quite ornately
veined. Probably because of his song, his name has

PIPERS AND MINNESINGERS 11

become confused with that of the locust, which is
always a true grasshopper. The cicada whose song is
the most familiar to us is the “ dog-day harvest-fly”” or
“Lyreman” (Fig. 3). It resembles the seventeen-year
species, except that it is
larger and requires only
two or three years in
the immature state, be-
low ground, instead of seven-
teen. The Lyreman when seen
from above is black, with dull-green
scroll ornamentation; below he is
covered with white powder. He
lives in trees; hidden beneath the
leaves, this arboreal wooer sends
forth a high trill, which seems to
steep the senses of the listener in
the essence of summer noons. If
you chance to find a Lyreman fallen from his perch and
take him in your hand, he will sing and you can feel
his body vibrate with the sound. But it will remain a
mystery where the musical instrument is situated, for
it is nowhere visible to the uninitiated. However, if
you place him on his back, you may see directly behind
the base of each hind leg a circular plate, nearly a
quarter of an inch in diameter; beneath each of these

Fic. 3. The Lyreman —
an arboreal wooer.

12 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

plates is a cavity across which is stretched a partition
made up of three distinct kinds of membranes for the
modulation of the tone; at the top of each cavity is a
stiff, folded membrane which acts as a drumhead; but
it is set In vibration by muscles instead of drumsticks,
and these muscles move so rapidly that we cannot dis-
tinguish the separate vibrations. Thus, our Lyreman is
provided with a very complicated pair of kettledrums,
which he plays with so much skill that his music sounds
more like that of a mandolin than of a drum.

The cicada was regarded as almost divine by the
early Greeks. When Homer wished to compliment his
best orators he compared them to cicadas. Anacreon,
the most graceful of the lyric poets of Greece, addresses
him thus : —

“Sweet prophet of summer, loved of the Muses,
Beloved of Phoebus who gave thee thy shrill song,
Old age does not wear upon thee;
Thou art earth-born, musical, impassive, without blood.
Thou art almost a god.”

The Greeks were so much attached to these insects
that they kept them in cages for the sake of their
songs; they wore images of them in their hair. The
song of the cicada was the name given to the sound of
the harp; a cicada upon a harp was the emblem of the
science of music. We all know the beautiful story of

PIPERS AND MINNESINGERS 13

the rival musicians, Eunomus and Ariston, and how
during a contest in harp-playing a cicada flew to the
instrument of Eunomus, took the place of a broken
string, and thus won for him the victory. The ancients
also seem to have known something of the habits of
these insects, for the cynical Xenarchus tells us : —
“ Happy the cicadas’ lives
Since they all have voiceless wives.”
Virgil also pays tribute to the cicadas thus : —

“Et cantu querulae rumpent arbusta Cicadae.”

The English poets have also paid the cicadas some
attention. Byron, who seldom mentions the smaller
things in nature, writes : —

“ The shrill cicadas, people of the pine,
Make their summer lives one ceaseless song.”
The most graphic description of the song of our own
cicada is given by Elizabeth Akers in the lines : —

“The shy cicada, whose noon voice rings
So piercing shrill that it almost stings
The sense of hearing.”

James Whitcomb Riley also characterizes him in his own
vivid way in the poem on “ The Beetle * : —

“ The shrilling locust slowly sheathes
His dagger voice and creeps away
Beneath the brooding leaves, where breathes
The zephyr of the dying day.”

14 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

Surely a new interest attaches to this summer-day
song when we realize that it has pleased the human ear
since the dim age of Homer. The cicada’s kettledrums
are perhaps the only musical instruments now in use
that have remained unchanged through a thousand
centuries since they were first mentioned.

The other of the insect love singers belong to the
order Orthoptera and are quite closely related to each
other. First among these are short-horned grass-
hoppers, although they are not so musical as some
of the other species. However, we find in this group
~ some veritable fiddlers. The long hind leg which is
roughened with short spines is used as a fiddle bow, and
is drawn across the wing cover, which acts the part of
the fiddle, and gives off certain notes. These are our
common grasshoppers and may be watched while fid-
dling if one has the patience and wariness. These
insects have found many admirers among the poets.
Leigh Hunt apostrophizes the grasshopper thus : —

“Green little vaulter in the sunny grass

Catching your heart up at the feel of June,
Sole voice that’s heard amid the lazy noon.”

And Keats writes thus: —

“ The poetry of earth is never dead;
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run

PIPERS AND MINNESINGERS 15

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the grasshopper’s. He takes the lead
In summer luxury.”

As may be inferred from these allusions these grass-
hoppers sing during the heat of the day.

Other species of this same group of grasshoppers
make their music by rubbing the front surface of the
hind wings against the under surface of the wing
covers. This can only be accomplished when the
insect is flying. The note is a crackling sound; how-
ever, it is no accidental noise; it is as true a song as
any, as I am sure all observers will agree who have
seen one of these great, brown, roadside grasshoppers
fly up into the air and hold himself there poised for
minutes while he performs in apparent ecstasy his rapid,
monotonous pizzicato. James Whitcomb Riley has seen
him, as the following lines prove : —

“ Where the dusty highway leads,
High above the wayside weeds
They sowed the air with butterflies, like blooming
flower seeds,
Till the dull grasshopper sprung
Half a man’s height up; and hung

Tranced in the heat with whirring wings and sung
and sung and sung.”

This description is so accurate that it actually
identifies the species. Mr. Riley is the prince among

16 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

poets that have sung Nature’s melodies in America.
His sensitiveness to all out-of-door life, and his keen
eyes, unto which not only the poetry but the truth of
the fields and woods are revealed, make him a special
delight to naturalists. They have to make no mental
reservations when reading his poems. Elizabeth Akers
was another satisfactory naturalist poet, and she too
has noted this roadside grasshopper. She says :—

“ The flying grasshopper clacked his wings
Like castanets gayly beating.”

Correlated with love singing must also be love listen-
ing. While many insects have the chordotonal or true
hearing organs inside the body, only a few have these
connected with what we would, at first sight, call ears ;
and it is interesting to note the odd places in which
these ears are situated. The grasshoppers which have
been described have their ears placed on each side of
the body on the segment behind the one to which the
hind legs are attached. These little ears may be seen
with the naked eye if the insect’s wings be lifted out of
the way; in appearance they are nearly circular disks.
The first thought is, “‘Of course, since these ears were
developed to hear love songs, they would naturally be
nearer the heart than our own.” Unfortunately for
this theory an insect’s anatomy is not arranged like

PIPERS AND MINNESINGERS 17

ours. The insect heart is a tube that extends along the
back, like our backbone, and it is a most disconcerting

organ when regarded as a
possible locality for senti-
ment.

The long-horned or mead-
ow grasshoppers are usually
bright green or pale brown
in color and occur in the
taller grass of the meadows.
They have long antenne, as
delicate as fine silken threads,
which they keep constantly
in motion (Fig. 4). These
musicians have an apparatus
for singing quite different
from that of their short-
horned cousins. The wing-
covers, near their bases at

Fic. 4. Meadow Grasshopper.

the middle of the back, have a seria enlarged and
sustained by strong veins (Fig. 5). One of these veins
is ridged, and when drawn across the edge of the
other wing-cover causes a vibration. The note given
off is high but soft and pleasing; we associate it with
the meadows in haying time and the heat of the day;
however, several of our common species sing in the

18 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

evening exclusively. One species of these grasshoppers
lives in trees. The meadow grasshoppers have their
ears in the same place as do the katydids (Fig. 9).

Fic. 5. Wing-cover of Male Meadow Fic. 6. Wing-cover of Female
Grasshopper. Showing Musical Meadow Grasshopper. Not a
Organ. Musical Instrument.

Another singer of love songs is the katydid.

“T love to hear thine earnest voice

Wherever thou art hid,

Thou testy little dogmatist,
Thou pretty katydid.

Thou mindest me of gentle folks,
Old gentle folks are they,

Thou say’st an undisputed thing
In such a solemn way.”

I think this musician must have been some distance
from Dr. Holmes when he wrote these lines; for dis-
tance is needful to lend enchantment to the katydid’s
song. The grating emphasis of the assertion “ Ka’-ty
did’, she did’,” is nerve-lacerating when the listener is
in close proximity to this bass viol of the insect orches-
tra. Mr. Riley describes the song well when he says : —

“The katydid is rasping at
The silence from the tangled broom.”

PIPERS AND MINNESINGERS 19

The word “‘rasping”’ is peculiarly felicitous in this
description ; Elizabeth Akers used it also: —
“The katydid with its rasping dry

Made forever the same reply,
Which laughing voices would still deny.”

The katydids are near relatives to the meadow grass-
hoppers; they live in trees and sing only in the even-
ing and night. Despite his heavy voice the katydid is

Fic. 7. Katydid.
a very shy insect ; the only sure way to find him is to
take a lantern and, guided by the sound, discover his
retreat while his attention is distracted by his quite dis-
tracting song. When found he is well worth looking at ;
he is dressed in pea-green ; his wing-covers are so leaf-
like in form and color that it is no wonder he is invisible
when perched among the leaves. His face wears a very
solemn expression, but somewhere in it is a suggestion
of drollery, as if he could appreciate a joke; he keeps
his long silken antenne waving in an inquiring way

20 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

that suggests curiosity rather than fear. Figure 7 is”
a picture of our common katydid; it shows the front
triangular portion of the wing,
— f L which is the instrument with
i m which the katydid plays. Figure 8
shows the details of the triangular
bases of the upper wings from be-
Fig.8, Musteal Inswument neath; 7 is the left wing triangle
of the Katydid. 7 . :
and ris that of the right wing;
the left triangle bears the file (f/f) and the right
triangle bears the scraper (s); m the central portion of
each triangle is a translucent membrane (#2), which is
set into vibration when the scraper is drawn across the
file and transmits the movement to the entire wing.
The file is so large that it can be seen plainly with the
naked eye. The song is so exactly like our own enun-
ciation of the words “Katy did, Katy did, she did,”
that the singer seems almost uncanny,
and attracts universal attention wherever
he. abounds.
Of the insect musicians the cricket is
easily the most popular. Long associated

with man, as a companion of the hearth Fic. 9. Ear of
and the field, his song touches ever the een

chords of human experience. Although we, in America,
do not have the house-cricket which English poets

PIPERS AND MINNESINGERS 21

praise, yet our field-crickets have a liking for warm
corners, and will, if encouraged, take up their abode
among our hearthstones. The greatest tribute to the
music of the cricket is the wide range of human
emotion which it expresses. “As merry as a cricket”
is a very old saying and is evidence that the cricket’s
fiddling has ever chimed with the gay moods of dancers
and merrymakers. Again, the cricket’s song is made
an emblem of peace; and again we hear that the
cricket’s “ plaintive cry”’ is taken as the harbinger of
the sere and dying year. From happiness to utter
loneliness is the gamut covered by this sympathetic
song. Leigh Hunt found him glad and thus addresses
him : —
“And you, warm little housekeeper who class
With those who think the candles come too soon,

Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune
Nick the glad, silent moments as they pass.”

The chirp of the cricket is, in literature, usually
associated with the coming of autumn; but the careful
listener may hear him in the early summer, although
his song is not so insistent as later in the season. To
me it is the most enticing of all the insect strains; there
seems to be in it an invitation to “come and be cosy
and happy while the summer and the sunshine last.” I
have also always been an admirer of the manly and self-

22 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

respecting methods of this little troubadour. He does
not wander abroad to seek his lady-love, but stands
sturdily at his own gate and plays his fiddle lustily,
always doing his best ; he knows the shy lady is not far
away, and that if she likes his song she will come to
him when her heart is won. It is very easy to see the
cricket making his “ crink,” as our British cousins call
his cry. If you are careful, you may observe him in
his own doorway; or perhaps an easier method is to
catch several and place them in a glass jar in which
there is a little sod; they will soon begin chirping in
such a cage and may be watched at leisure. ;

Each wing-cover of the male cricket is divided into
membranous, disklike spaces on top (Fig. 10), and across
each extends a vein covered with transverse
ridges, the “file” (f/f); on the inner edge,
near the base, is a hardened portion called
the “scraper” (s). When chirping the
cricket lifts his wing-covers and draws the
scraper of one across the file of the other,
“ and thus sets both im vibration. In order
Fic. 10. Wing. to play on this natural violin the little

aha si virtuoso is obliged to lift his upper wings in

enlarged. a way that gives him a fierce and bristling
appearance, quite at variance with his amorous tune
and frame of mind. While the earlier songs of the

Fie. 11. When the Afternoon Shadows in the Orchard lengthen.

24 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

cricket are for wooing, I have come to believe that the
later songs of the autumn are made for the love of
music. Possibly he still plays on for the delectation of
his mate, although the time of youth and love have
passed by. At all events, after the mating season is
gone, you may hear these indefatigable serenaders from
the hour when the afternoon shadows in the orchard
lengthen until late at night, playing as steadily as if
they thought music the most important of
occupations.

The cricket ear is placed most conven-
Fic. 12. Ear jently in the tibia of the front leg, so that
of Cricket. . - ‘
these insects literally hear with their elbows.
Figure 12 shows the ear of a cricket. The katydids and
meadow grasshoppers have their ears placed similarly.
The last but by no means least of our minnesingers
is the snowy tree-cricket, the brave little musician of
frosty autumn. You will hear him first as you stroll
along some country highway that leads past woods and
orchard, and loses itself over dreamy hills set in the
amethyst haze of September afternoons.!' His music is so
much a part of the landscape that you have perhaps
never noticed it at all, and certainly you have never
seen this shy fiddler. He lives mostly on trees and
shrubs and is seldom visible because of his pallid green

1 See Frontispiece.

PIPERS AND MINNESINGERS 25

color, which makes him seem a ghost of an insect
rather than a real one. Figure 13 shows a male of the
species ; his fiddle is in structure similar to that of the
black cricket. He is a true ventriloquist, and it is
almost impossible to find him by following the seeming
direction of his song.

There are two species of snowy tree-crickets common
in eastern United States which resemble each other
so closely in appearance
that only an entomologist’s
trained eye can distinguish
them. However, their
music is totally different.
I remember well a certain
September when I was as-
sociated with two ento-
mologists who spent most
of their leisure in a patient
and loving study of the habits of these two species. One
they named “the whistler” and the other “ the fiddler.”
The whistler is oftener found on low shrubs or in the
grass, and he gives a clear, soft, prolonged, unbroken
note. The fiddler’s note is louder and short and con-
tinuously repeated. To the listener it soon seems like
a refined and gentle imitation of the katydid’s song.
There seem to be three notes, the first and third being

Fic. 18. Snowy Tree-cricket.

26 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

accented, “ Ka’-ty did’.” But when studied more
closely we are not sure whether the accent is in the
music or in the listener’s imagination; and, finally, in
bewilderment we simply accept the fact that somehow
there is a delightful rhythm in it and cease trying to
analyze it. We also note that this singer’s vivacity is
dependent upon warm temperature.

So far as we know, this snowy tree-cricket is the
only one of the insect musicians that seems conscious
of the fact that he belongs to an orchestra. If you
listen on a September evening, you will hear the first
player begin; soon another will join, but not in har-
’ mony at first. For some time there may be a see-saw
of accented and unaccented notes; but after a while
the two will be in unison; perhaps not, however,
until many more players have joined the concert.
When the rhythmical beat is once established it is im as
perfect time as if governed by the baton of a Damrosch
or a Thomas. The “throbbing of the cricket heart of
September” it has been fitly named. Sometimes an
injudicious player joins the chorus at the wrong beat, but
he soon discovers his error and rectifies it. Sometimes,
also, late at night, one part of the orchestra in an
orchard gets out of time with the majority, and discord
may continue for some moments, as if the players were
too cold and too sleepy to pay good attention. This

PIPERS’ AND MINNESINGERS 27

delectable concert begins usually in the late after-
noon and continues without ceasing until just before
dawn the next morning. Many times I have heard
the close of the concert; with the “wee sma’ hours
the rhythmic beat becomes slower ; toward dawn there
is a falling off in the number of players; the beat is
still slower, and the notes are hoarse, as if the fiddlers
were tired and cold; finally, when only two or three are
left, the music stops abruptly. Fitly and fortunately
the song of this cricket is the most soothing of all the
songs of insects. To listen to it consciously would
make the most unfortunate victim of insomnia drowsy.
It is the incarnation in sound of the spirit of slumber ;
it broods over the care-tired world, and with gentle
insistence hushes it to sleep.

A Restful, Woodsy Path.

Fic, 14.

II
A LITTLE NOMAD

NE warm August morning I followed a

certain restful, woodsy path which soon
Mm, led me to a partially wooded hillside.
~~ I found a shady resting-place under a
pair of twin maple trees, where I
settled contentedly in the grass with some downy young
sumacs for neighbors. The blue waters of the lake twin-
kled up at me through the tree-boles, and a blue sky
beamed down on me through the tree-tops. The breeze,
playing softly with the leaves above me, and the soft
swish of the water on the rocks below united in a sooth-
ing song, to which a cicada from his high perch was doing
his best to perform a worthy obligato. I was tired of a
world of work and care; and as I turned my footsteps
toward this cosy nook I said to myself, “I will go where
I can be alone.” Vain decision and absurd desire! I
had just arranged for myself a tree-trunk chair-back
and was enjoying the nice bark upholstery when a
grandfather graybeard came teetering along on his
stilts, letting his body down at rhythmic intervals to
29

30 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

feel of my hand with his palpi to discover if perchance
I were good to eat. Then a red squirrel darted up a
young ash tree in front of me, the dark stripe on his
side where the red and white meet being particularly
vivid and dashing ; at first he sneezed and coughed his
displeasure at my intrusion and then sprang his rattle
so suddenly that I wondered if it might be that squir-
rels have secreted in them storage batteries that may
be switched at will from action to sound. Then a great
butterfly, a tiger swallowtail, came careening down
through a hole in my leaf canopy and alighted on a
sunlit bush near me; there, in utter luxuriousness, he
slowly opened and shut his wings in obvious enjoyment
of his sun-bath. While watching him I noticed that
the maple sapling, on which he was resting, was in a
bad way; its leaves were riddled with holes, varying
in size from that of a bird shot to that of a small
_ bean.

Now while I was tired of a world that lectured and
talked and argued and did many other noisy things
that wore on one’s nerves, I was by no means tired
of the great silent world that did things and made
no fuss about doing them. So, when my butterfly
drifted away, I lazily began to investigate the cause
of the dilapidation of the maple leaves. There I
found, as I suspected at first glance, a little nomad

Fic. 15. Twin Maples.

32 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

named the Maple-leaf Cutter, which pitches its tent
on leafy plains and whose acquaintance I had made

Fic. 16. Maple-leaf Cutter: Moth and Camping-ground of Caterpillar.

several years ago when I was employed to make its
family portraits.
I plucked a leaf that had several oval holes in it and

A LITTLE NOMAD 33

also several oval rings marked by a tracing of bare
veins and translucent leaf tissue (Fig. 16); then I
noticed an oval bit of leaf wrong side up on the upper
surface of the leaf. A glance at this through my lens
showed that it was made fast to its place by several
bundles of glistening white silk. With a knife point
I tore asunder these ropes and lifted the wee tent and
found fastened to its under surface another bit of the
leaf identical in shape but somewhat
smaller. Suddenly from an opening be-
tween the two an inquiring head was
thrust out with an air that said plainly,
“Who’s there?” I tore the two pieces
of leaf apart to get a better view of the
little imate. He was a stocky, brownish
caterpillar, about one-sixth of an inch Fie.17. Caterpil-
long, with shields on his thoracic seg- rot Maple-leat
Cutter enlarged.
ments that shone like polished bronze
and an anal shield that was dull purple (Fig. 17).
His several simple eyes were in two such compact
groups that they gave the impression of two keen,
beady, black eyes, and I had a feeling that he
was inspecting me through the lens. He was very
unhappy and squirmy when removed from his cover,
and he backed so vigorously that he backed half his
length out of the rear end of his tent before he

34 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

felt safe, and then remained very still. His loosened
tent was lying bottom side up on the leaf; and owing
to my clumsy proportions I was obliged to leave the
labor of righting it to him; he gave it his immediate
attention and went at it in a most workmanlike
manner. He crawled halfway out upon the leaf and
by a dexterous lift of the rear end of his body he
brought the tent down right side up and at once
began pegging it down. To do this he moved his
lower lip around and around on the
leaf surface to make fast, then spun
his rope up and lifting his head
fastened it to the edge of the tent ;
this process he repeated many times,
but with great rapidity, and when
the fastening was finished it was
well worth seeing. He had spun his
silken cords so they formed an X.
This arrangement allowed him room
to fasten many lines to the leaf and tent, and since
they were crossed in the middle they had the strength
of many twisted strands (Fig. 18). He put his first
fastening at one side of his tent and then hastened to
put another on the opposite side, and thus made secure
he took his time for putting down the remainder of his
ropes.

Fic. 18. Tent Ropes of
/ the Maple-leaf Cutter.

A LITTLE NOMAD 35

While watching him spin, I mused on his history as
revealed in its earlier chapters by that truly great
scientist, Dr. Fitch, and added to in its later chapters
by our own Dr. Lintner, — two men of whom New York
is so justly proud. This history was as follows: Last
May a tiny moth (Incurvaria acerifoliella) sought out
this maple sapling; she was a beautiful little creature
with a wing expanse of a little more than a half inch;
her front wings and thorax were steel-blue, and her
hind wings and abdomen were pale, smoky brown ;
these hind wings were bordered with a wide, fine
fringe ; across both sets of wings glinted and gleamed
a purple iridescence like that on the surface of a bit
of mother-of-pearl. On her head, between her antenne,
she wore a little cap of orange feathers, this color com-
bination of orange and steel-blue proving her to be
a moth of fine discrimination in the matter of dress.
This pretty mother moth laid an egg upon the leaf
which I held in my hand; from that egg hatched my
wee caterpillar, and began life, I suspect, as a true leaf-
miner. However, this is a guess of my own, inspired
by the appearance of the leaf. Anyway, he did not
remain a miner long, but soon cut out a bit of the leaf
and pulled it over him and pegged it down; beneath it
he pastured on the green leaf-tissues in safety, and in
this retreat he shed his skin. With added growth came

36 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

the need for more commodious quarters; so he cut
‘ another oval piece from the leaf, as much larger than
his tent as he could reach without coming entirely out
of his cover; before he cut it completely free he mgen-
iously fastened one side of it to the leaf with silk so that
he would not fall, cradle and all, to the ground. He
then used this fastening as a hinge as he came part way
out of his tent, took a good hold of the leaf with his
sharp claws, and flipped the loosened piece over his back
and fastened it down over fresh feed-
ing-eround. What was previously his
tent was then a rug beneath him ; his
new pasture was a margin of about
one-twelfth inch that lay between the
edges of his rug and his tent; for he
was ever averse to exposing his pre-
cious person to lurking enemies more

than was strictly necessary. Before

Fic 19. A Lilliputian he shed his skin again he may have
Mud-turtle. :

needed a new pasture; if so, he struck
his tent and walked off with it on his back, looking like
a Lilliputian mud-turtle, and finally fastened it on a new
site (Fig. 19). He had already several times gone through
this process of upsetting his house, for he had two rugs
beneath him and two tents above him of graduated sizes.

And I knew that some time in the near future he would

A LITTLE NOMAD 37

peg down his largest tent more securely than he had ever
done before, and there in this safe shelter would change
to a pupa. When the leaf that had been the range of
this small nomad fell in the autumn he would go with
it; and wrapped in his tent rugs he would sleep his
winter sleep under the snow until he should awaken
next spring, no longer a tenter on leafy plains, but
a true child of the air.

I tore off a bit of the leaf on which my little friend
had settled, and went over and pinned it to a leaf still
on the bush. It may have been an absurd thing to do,
but by this time I was shamelessly, nay, intrepidly
sentimental, and I did not wish that little chap to
starve because of my inborn tendency to meddle with
other people’s affairs. I then fell from bad to worse
and began to moralize; for when a naturalist falls to
moralizing science weeps. I meditated thus, “I came
here to get away from puzzling problems, and yet here
they are all around me; the problems of the little
nomad; the problems of the poor, leaf-lacerated maple ;
and if I look in other directions I will find more in
plenty.” But for some sweet reason I did not feel
about problems as I did when I ran away and hid from
the noisy world two hours before. I was filled with
a new sense of the dignity and grandeur of this great
silent struggle for adjustment and supremacy which

38 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

was going on around me. I felt inspired to go back
and serenely do my own little part as well as I
could, trusting that somehow, somewhere, and _ to
Some One the net proceeds of struggle are greater than
_ the cost.

Ill
A SHEEP IN WOLF’S CLOTHING

O hatch from the egg, to attain growth
through steady attention to eating, to
reach maturity and produce eggs for
another generation, are the necessities
of insect life. The ways and means

of accomplishing these things success-
fully is a problem which is partially
solved by the habits of the species, and partially by
the efforts of the individual. The habits of a species
comprise the wisdom stored up in the experience of that
species during thousands of years; the habits of a
species is the pathway by which it has struggled up
to the ranks of the “ fittest > which have survived.

No insect history better epitomizes the history of a
race than does that of the Viceroy Butterfly (Lasilar-
chia archippus), a beautiful insect which in early sum-
mer makes our open fields and marshy meadows brilliant
with the flashing of orange-red wings in the sunshine.
The early stages of the Viceroy have been worked out
in detail and given to the world through the careful

and patient labors of Dr. 8S. H. Scudder.
39

Fie. 20. The Home of the Young Viceroy.

A SHEEP IN WOLF’S CLOTHING 41

The Viceroy mother selects usually the terminal twigs
of some willow or poplar, and places her eggs singly on
the tips of the terminal leaves (Fig. 20). Now this
choice of the topmost leaf of the branch is not without
reason on the part of the mother. This egg, though
scarcely so large as a pinhead has many enemies ; there
are spiders always prowling around to find tidbits for
their rapacious stomachs; there are tiny ichneumon-
flies ready to lay their eggs within even so small an ege
as this; there are wasps and other voracious insects
always on the lookout for things eatable. So there is
reason for putting these eggs one in a place on the tip
end of a branch, where the wind always keeps the leaves
stirring in a way to confuse the vision of these active
foes. As a protection against these same inquisitive
eyes the ege is of a dark green color, almost the exact
hue of the upper surface of the leaf on which it is invari-
ably placed. This little green egg is a beautiful object
when viewed through a microscope ; it is ornately sculp-
tured in an hexagonal pattern and set with short spines.
It seems to be one of nature’s laws of beauty that noth-
ing is too small to be worth while.

After from four to eight days have elapsed since the
~ egg was laid, a little brownish larva gnaws its way out
through the side. As soon as it is fairly out it turns
around and eats the egg-shell, carving, spines, and all.

42 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

Not for sentiment nor yet for digestion does the larva
perform this somewhat auto-cannibalistic feat ; but for
the very practical reason that the empty shell if left

Fig. 21. Viceroy Caterpillar on Bare Midrib behind Decoy Bundle at A ;
B, Winter Home of Viceroy Caterpillar.

would mayhap yield a clew to his enemies which they
might follow up to his undoing. Then the little cater-
pillar begins feeding across the end of his native leaf,
leaving the midrib untouched. Maybe the midrib is too

A SHEEP IN WOLF’S CLOTHING 43

tough for the jaws of a baby caterpillar. On the other
hand, his subsequent actions would seem to imply
method in his manner of attacking the leaf; for the
Viceroy larva is a night feeder, and he uses the denuded
midrib as a perch during the day. Stretched out
lengthwise on this he is nearly invisible during his
earlier stages. Besides this, he uses a very ingenious
device to distract the attention of keen eyes from his
precious person ; he fastens with a silken thread a little
bunch of débris to the bare stem between his feeding-
place and his resting-place (Fig. 21). This is a clever
performance ; for if one of his foes should be hunting on
this leaf and should start out on the denuded stem it
would meet with this empty and worthless mass and
would naturally be discouraged from further investiga-
tion. As the caterpillar gnaws off more of the leaf he
moves his ambush bundle farther down the stem; so
it is evidently of some real use to him.

After a few days our caterpillar finds his skin too
small for his increasing size and proceeds to shed it
caterpillar-wise ; but he is still unwilling to leave any
traces of himself around, so he eats up his old skin as
he did his egg-shell. He soon destroys the leaf of his
birth and then consumes others. In the course of his
growth he sheds his skin three times and after each
moult he assumes a change of form and color. Various

44 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

warts and tubercles appear on him after the first moult ;
these grow more numerous and noticeable with each
succeeding change until he becomes a most grotesque
and amazing-appearing creature, with a pair of spiny
pompons in front and spines too numerous to mention
decorating his body. Most people not entomologically
educated would exclaim on seeing this caterpillar when
full grown “ The horrid thing!” And if the caterpillar
could hear and be conscious of the history of his race
as embodied in himself, he

would rejoice and be exceed-
ing glad over this verdict ; for
it is greatly to his advantage
now to look so disagreeable
Fie. 22. “So humpy and spiny that no one would willingly
that no bird would touch him.”’ molest ha. ‘The height at his
racial ambition is to be so humpy and spiny that no bird,
however rash, would dare to touch him. His coloring

now is pale olive, with a large white blotch in the middle
so as to make him resemble a bit of bird-lime on a leaf.
Not only in color and shape is he ugly, but he seeks to
intimidate by his movements any approaching enemy.
When he walks his head trembles as if he had the palsy,
making the whole leaf quake and likewise the heart of
the foe. If he is attacked or disturbed, he will fly into
a tremendous rage and swing his head from one side to

A SHEEP IN WOLF’S CLOTHING 45

the other in a ferocious fashion. Myr. Scudder saw two
of these caterpillars meet, and each began a great
swinging of the head, hitting the other several times
durmg this family jar. When fully grown the cater-
pillar, if disturbed, moves his head around in a circle on
the leaf and “ genashes his teeth” in fury. To one who
understands him this is a very funny bluff; for he is
not only absolutely harmless, but he is also very fastid-
ious about his food and could not be in-
duced to take a bite out of an assailant.

When the Viceroy changes to a chrysa-

lis he is almost as grotesque in form as
when he was a larva; for he now wears
a large excrescence in front that bears a
resemblance to a Roman nose (Fig. 23).
The obvious use of this protuberance is to
convince a bird of the utter futility of attempting to
swallow such an uneven morsel.
_ About a month after the egg is laid the adult isect
appears, and on gorgeous wings sails off to join its
fellows; for this is a social butterfly and is fond of
dancing about in the air with its comrades.

Very soon are the eggs laid for another brood. But
the history of an individual of this generation is very
different in some particulars than the one just related.
After a larva of the second brood hatches, he feeds, as

Fie. 28, ‘+ An un-
even morsel.”’

46 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

did his parent, on the tip of the leaf, leaving the mid-
rib for a perch during the day. But when he is about
one-third grown he commences to display a peculiar
interest in a certain, chosen leaf. He first fastens
the petiole to the branch by weaving around the two
many strands of silk; this is to keep the leaf from
falling when assailed by the fierce winds of autumn.
He then proceeds to the tip of the leaf and gnaws it
off squarely across, leaving the midrib bare as usual;
he is a clever engineer and leaves just enough of the
leaf to suit his purpose. He folds the remaining por-
tion of the leaf into a tube and sews it with a neat
silken seam and then lines the tube luxuriously with
silk (Fig. 21, B). The little house thus made is just
large enough for the insect’s body; and he crawls
into it, his warty last segment fitting nicely the orifice
and constituting a living door. The question at once
suggests itself, how does this larva know how to do
this thing? His parents did not do it, and if he
inherited the knowledge it must have been from his
grandparents. This is one of the inscrutable mysteries ;
and all we know about it is that during the warm days
of autumn, long before there is any hint of winter in
even the skies, this caterpillar, which never experienced
a winter and whose parents never experienced a winter,
builds himself this winter house and hides himself

A SHEEP IN WOLFS CLOTHING 47

within it. Moreover, he selects a leaf near the ground
so that he may have the protection of a cover of snow,
which proves him to be truly winter-wise. He and all
his generation pass the winter safely in their tiny tene-
ments, remaining there dormant until the first buds
or catkins of the spring call them to a vernal break-

Fig. 24, The Viceroy.

fast ; then they back out of their dwellings and devote
themselves thereafter to eating and growing as if they
had never experienced a winter vacation while pursu-
ing this important business. They change to butterflies
in June.

The flight of the Viceroys consists of a few rapid
flutters of the wings and then a period of sailing
through the air with wings extended. This exposes
them mercilessly to the attack of birds which regard

48 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

most butterflies as the most delectable sort of food.
This butterfly is especially agreeable as a diet to birds,
and yet they rarely touch it. Why is this? It is
another instance of the marvellous adaptation of this
species to its environment, and of its power to seize
an advantage in a precarious situation. This wonder-

Fic. 25. The Monarch.

ful little creature that resembled disagreeable things
when it was young to save itself from being eaten by
birds, now, when grown, resembles in color and mark-
ings a butterfly which birds avoid for good reason.
This butterfly (Anosia plexippus) is named the Monarch,
and it belongs to a group all members of which are
nauseous to birds. Its gay color, orange-red marked

A SHEEP IN WOLF’S CLOTHING 49

with black borders and veins, is its protection; for it
is an advertisement, a sort of a poster which proclaims
that here is something that right-minded birds leave
alone. So our palatable Viceroy has developed colors
and markings so nearly like the unpalatable Monarch
that no feathered creature will touch him, unless per-
chance one shall be knowing enough to notice the
black band across the Viceroy’s hind wings which is
his chief distinguishing mark.

To understand the magnitude of the feat accom-
plished by the Viceroys in abjuring their family colors
of black, white, and blue, and adopting the orange and
black uniform of the Monarchs we must consider the
vast differences in the earlier stages of the two species.
The Monarch egg is laid upon the tender terminal
leaves of milkweed and is quite as ornate as that of
the Viceroy but of quite different pattern. When the
caterpillar hatches, it pursues the same tactics as does
that of the Viceroy; and for the same wise’ precaution
eats its egg-shell. The milkweed is a succulent food,
and the caterpillar may mature in eleven days; when
full grown it is a gay creature banded crosswise with
black, yellow, and green; on the second segment of the
thorax and the seventh segment of the abdomen are a
pair of black, flexible, whiplike filaments. They are
smug-looking caterpillars, and they are smug in spirit

50 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

also, for they are permeated with a race consciousness
that the more they flaunt their gay stripes to the world
the less likely are they to be attacked by a prudent bird.
It is a great advantage to an insect to have the bird

Fig. 26. ‘‘Smug-looking caterpillars. ”’

problem elimi-
nated from the
start. However,
there remains the
problem of para-
sites and, there-
fore, the black
whips. When I
was a child I dis-
turbed a flock of
these caterpillars
resting together on
the lower side of
a leaf of wmilk-
weed, and I still re-
member the creepy
fascination with
which I gazed at

the black and yellow ringed creatures and the waving,
jerking-whips lashing back and forth to frighten away
ichneumons; if the real ichneumons were as frightened
as I was, the caterpillars were surely safe.

A SHEEP IN WOLF’S CLOTHING 51

The chrysalis of the Monarch is the most beautiful
gem in nature’s casket of living jewels. Its color is
the most exquisite green, and it is enamelled with dots
of shining gold; a gold far more wonderful than was
ever mined by man. This ornamentation can be of no
real use to the insect, and one is driven again to the
conclusion that nature has so wrought this living jewel
for the sake of beauty alone.

From this emerald case comes, in due time, the
great red-winged butterfly; and how so large a butter-
fly can be packed in so small a case is nothing less than
a miracle. If, perchance, the issuing butterfly is a
male, then we have before us the veriest of insect
dandies ; he is not only trig in figure and gorgeous in
color but on each hind wing he carries a sachet bag
embroidered in black. He indulges in no vulgar flirt-
ing of a scented handkerchief to allure his lady-love;
he simply flirts a beauteous red wing with a perfume
pocket on it, and lo! she is won.

But the Monarchs have other problems of their own
just because the bird problem is eliminated. For
because of this immunity they spread and flourished
in their native tropic America until there came the
problem of more food plants, more milkweed. And
thus they began pushing farther north and south
during the seasons of milkweed growth. As they

52 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

could not endure the northern winter they simply
came north for the summer and went back for the
winter. At least this is what the wise men tell us.
But this northern migration is carried on in a most
peculiar manner. ach mother butterfly follows the
spring northward as it advances as far as she finds the
milkweed sprouted. There she deposits her eggs, from
which hatch individuals that carry on the journey and
lay their eggs as far to the north as possible; per-
chance it is their children that we hear of in late sum-
mer on the shores of Hudson Bay. As cool weather
approaches the Monarchs gather in vast flocks for the
southward migration. These flocks are not made up of
the individuals that migrated north but of their chil-
dren and grandchildren. There are no old ones among
them travel-wise to guide them back to Florida and
the West Indies. How they know the way is beyond
our imagination, unless, perhaps, there flows in their
bodies tropical blood that impels them to go back
where the bamboo shades the stream, and the torn ban-
ners of the banana wave on sluggish breeze. All we
know is this: the Monarchs migrate northward by
generations and southward by individuals; and from
Patagonia to Athabasca swings the migratory pendulum.
Nor is it content with this range; the strongest flier
of all the butterflies it hesitates not to try its for-

A SHEEP IN WOLF’S CLOTHING 53

tune over seas, and has been found flying bravely
five hundred miles from shore. Either by flight or
as stowaways in vessels they have pressed eastward
to western Kurope and westward to the farthest
isles of the Pacific. Well is it named the “ Monarch,”
for it is the most daring and indomitable butterfly that
we know, pushing back its geographical boundaries to
the very edge of the Arctic zone, and exploring on
leisurely and confident wing the seas that wash the
shores of the Occident and Orient.

No wonder the Viceroy chose so splendid a creature
to imitate. But I fear there is little noble ambition
as a motive to the imitation; just to keep alive as a
species is all. The value of such mimicry seems
a part and parcel of the Viceroy’s equipment with
which to march in the ranks of the fittest. In
southern Florida a common butterfly is a species of
the bad-tasting family to which the Monarch belongs ;
this is a dark mahogany-brown butterfly with no black
veins and borders. Therefore, in Florida, our imitative
Viceroy doffs his stolen uniform of orange and black
and dons another stolen uniform of mahogany-brown.
He evidently chooses his liveries for safety and not for
their intrinsic beauty; and he is entirely satisfied as
long as he successfully masquerades in a guise that
shall deceive the keen eyes of the birds of the air.

Olden Cities.

Fig. 27.

Ly
THE PERFECT SOCIALISM

T is unquestionable that the word “ social-
ist” is an epithet of reproach in the popu-
lar mind, and is associated with attempts
to subvert the law and order of civilized
society. Yet the student of history is
bound to confess that socialism has been

the product of the highest civilization. In every form it

has been an attempt, however misguided, to insure the
good of society at large through curtailing and regulating
the rights of the individual. The underlying idea of
socialism has ever been to secure for man upon earth the
equal chances for happiness which, it is believed, God in
his justice grants to man in the next world. The popular
disrepute of socialism is doubtless due, in part, to vari-
ous unsuccessful experiments in communal life; but it
is due also to the individualism of the human race,
which rebels against any levelling tendency. We each
prefer to keep our own fighting chance, however poor,
to sharing the same with our fellows less fortunate in

endowment and environment.
55

56 : WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

It is strange that in the history of socialism the fact
has been disregarded that, thousands of years before
Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen, and Karl Marx lived and
wrote, insects had already solved the problems of prac-
tical socialism. Surely, had Solomon been as interested
in social experiments as he was in industrial progress
he would have said, “Go to the ant, thou socialist,
learn her ways of community life and be wise; for she
provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her
food in the harvest, and shareth freely with her fellows
the products of her labors.”

The successful socialists among insects are bees, ants,
and wasps, all of which belong to the order Hymenop-
tera. But, as if to show that the lines of social develop-
ment in the insect world are founded upon fundamental
law, we find another group of insect socialists, the white
ants, or termites, which belong to an entirely different
order. They differ as much structurally from the ants,
bees, and wasps as do men from horses, and yet their
social habits are much the same. And even within the
Hymenoptera the social habits of bees, wasps, and ants
have doubtless been developed independently.

Let us examine the claims insects have to be ranked
as socialists and see if they are not well founded. The
efforts of human socialists have been directed toward
non-competitive division of labor, united capital, com-

THE PERFECT SOCIALISM 57

munal habitations, and amalgamation of interests. All
these conditions and more are to be found in insect
societies; for the social insects are uncompromising
Malthusians and rigorously control the increase ot popu-
lation. We will discuss these claims in detail and see
how they are substantiated by the facts observed in the
insect world.

CASTE

Division of labor by caste is a most interesting
phase of insect socialism and deserves to be considered
first. Our little six-footed brethren have loosed the
Gordian knot of division of labor through creating
castes more immutable than those of the Brahmins, and
they have solved the problems of caste by making their
existence a benefit to the whole society instead of to
the individuals belonging to the caste. This is brought
about by making each caste represent a division of
labor based upon the needs of the whole community.
The castes are: queens, kings, workers, and soldiers,
and a study of the functions of each is necessary in
order to understand the economy of the insect commune.

Royalty

The term “queen” is a misnomer among insects, for
they have no rulers in their societies. The queen is

58 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

always the mother of the colony, and the devoted at-
tention she receives is due to the fact that without her
the community would perish.

The queen has reached her highest development in
the honey-bee, and we will study her there. From in-
fancy she is destined to maternity, and her life-history
is briefly as follows: When the workers wish to develop
a queen they tear down the partitions between three
adjacent cells containing eggs which would naturally
develop into workers. They destroy two of the eggs,
reserving the third as occupant of the large cell which
they proceed to build over it. The egg hatches into a
little white bee grub, in no wise differing from those in
the neighboring cells. But soon the process of differ-
entiation begins, for this grub is fed upon a highly
nutritious food, made by the workers, called “royal
jelly.” Not for the delectation of the babe in the royal
cell is she fed royal jelly, but because this rich diet has
a marvellous effect upon her physical development, giving
her great capabilities for producing eggs. For five days
she is fed upon this stimulating food, and then the work-
ers cap her cell and leave her alone to change to a pupa.

About sixteen days from the date of hatching, the
queen is ready to come out of her cell; the workers
know this and are ready to open the cell and help the
royal lady out, now in full possession of her legs and

THE PERFECT SOCIALISM 59

wings. In appearance she is larger than the largest
workers — evidently a queenlier bee. Her first act, if
unhindered by the workers, is her one claim to similar-
ity to human royalty: she starts at once on a hunt for
other queens in the hive, for our queen is jealous and
will brook the presence of no other claimant to her
throne. Her sting is a noble weapon kept sacred to the
slaying of her peers. She hunts for other queen-cells,
tears them open with great fury, and assassinates the
helpless young princesses within them. But she is
quite as ready for fair fight as for assassination, for
when she finds another queen fully developed she will
fight her until one or the other is killed. The stark
bodies of fifteen unfortunate queens we found one day
thrown out of one of the hives; grim witnesses to the
prowess of the royal lady in possession of the colony.
In a few days after maturity the queen takes her
marriage flight in the sunshine. As soon as she returns
from her honeymoon the queen proceeds at once to
business, moving around upon the comb and gluing her
eggs to the bottoms of the cells. When the honey
season is at its height she works with great rapidity,
sometimes laying eges at the rate of six per minute,
accomplishing the feat of layimg over three thousand
egos per day —nearly twice her own weight. She is
a wise queen, moreover, and has an eye to the dangers

60 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

of overpopulation. When there is much honey and
great activity on the part of the workers and the
swarming season is at hand she enlarges her empire
rapidly ; but when there is little honey she takes care
that the population be limited to practical numbers.
Whether she does this as the result of her wisdom, or
whether she is guided by the quality of food the workers
give her, is a mooted question. From the point of this
discussion it matters not whether it be queen or subjects
that evince such foresight ; the fact that interests us is
that the bee socialists do control population.

The queen also codperates with the workers in de-
termining the relative proportions of the two sexes.
The workers are developed in comb composed of
small cells, the drones in comb composed of larger
cells. The greater part of the comb in the brood
chamber is of the first type, as it is essential that the
greater number of bees reared be workers. But as the
swarming season approaches the workers provide comb
made up of the larger cells, unless there is already
a sufficient quantity in the hive. This constitutes the
workers’ part in determining the relative proportion
of the sexes in the colony; it remains for the queen to
complete the work. In the smaller cells she deposits
eggs that will develop into workers, and in the larger
cells only those that will develop into drones.

THE PERFECT SOCIALISM 61

The queen bee could never accomplish such feats in
ege-laying if she were not cared for with great solicitude
by the workers. Her powers of motherhood are devel-
oped at the expense of the rest of her physique. Her
stomach is not fitted for the process of digestion; she
is always fed upon digested food, and thus her energies
are conserved for her great task.

Often in the summer or fall swarms of winged ants
may be encountered by the unhappy traveller, who has
much to do to keep them out of his eyes and mouth.
These winged forms are the king and queen ants taking
their marriage flight. As soon as this wedding tour is
over they drop to the ground; the kings die soon, the
queens tear off their wings in a great hurry, and, like
the queen bee, go to work at once. The first eggs the
queen ant lays she takes care of herself, housing and
feeding the young in a true, motherly way. The first
brood is composed of workers, and after their maturity
they take care of the nest and the young, and the
energies of the queen are reserved for the production
of eggs. In one particular is the queen ant more
amiable than the queen bee: she suffers no throes of
jealousy and dwells in peace with other queens in the
nest. The worker ants evidently regulate the size of
the royal family.

The kings and queens of the termites take flight at

62 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

first as do the ants. The queen and king are adopted
into some colony, where they are carefully cared for,
a royal cell bemg fashioned for their use. The queen
becomes greatly developed in size, until her abdomen is
a great ege sac, sometimes six or seven inches long. Of
course she cannot move, but lives in imprisoned help-
lessness, finding her only relief im the devotion of her
consort and subjects.

It is a sorry part in the larger affairs of the insect
world that is played by the males, whether we call
them kings or drones. Much scorn has been heaped
upon drones because they are the idlers in the bee com-
mune, but surely their lot is the least enviable of all
the castes in the hive. The drone’s sole raison d’étre is
to be consort of the queen ; but as there are hundreds of
drones to one queen, naturally there are very few that
fill the office intended for them by nature. Even if one
is successful, he loses his life for love; while the many
unsuccessful kings without kingdoms are mercilessly
sentenced to death by their worker sisters as soon as
the honey supply runs low. Cheshire describes the
killing of drones thus : —

“ No sooner does income fall below expenditure than
their nursing sisters turn their executioners, usually by
dragging them from the hive, biting at the insertion of
the wing. The drones, strong for their special work,

Fie. 28, An Ant Town.

64 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

are after all as tender as they are defenceless, and but
little exposure and abstinence is required to terminate
their being. So thorough is the war of extermination
that no age is spared!”

The question as to the economy of developing so
many useless princes royal is a puzzling one, and can
only be explained by the theory that natural selection
has acted to preserve those colonies having many drones
— another instance of the flagrant waste of individuals
for the benefit of the race. I call to mind a slaughter
-of drones I once witnessed in an observation hive.
The openings in the hive were large enough to admit
the workers only and therefore too small to allow the
passage of the bodies of the drones; so the determined
workers spent several days in tearing their wretched
victims limb from limb and removing them in sections.
Below a small crevice at the bottom of the hive could
be seen a windrow of disjointed legs and wings torn
from the poor drones. The king ants die natural
deaths, if death from cold and starvation may be
called so; at least, they are not subject to assassination
as are the king bees. The king termite is a noted ex-
ception in the insect world, as he lives a long and
exemplary life, sharing with his queen the attention
and devotion of his subjects.

Devotion to royalty has been much misunderstood by

THE PERFECT SOCIALISM 65

the earlier writers. Lubbock and McCook, as well as
apiarists, have shown that the devotion to the queen is
a matter of business interests to the colony. Not her
royal body do they revere but her royal prerogative of
motherhood. “What does” is the criterion of social-
ists; “what is” counts for nothing. Ants show a
great deal of devotion to a dead queen, giving her at-
tention for days or even weeks after her death. While
the queen bee moves about freely in the hive, the queen
ant has a bodyguard which always accompanies her
and often restricts her movements.

Beekeepers often have occasion to introduce new queens
into hives that are queenless. This is a delicate under-
taking, and many expedients are resorted to in order to
accomplish it successfully. It is interesting to note the
manner in which the bees refuse to accept a strange queen.
They “ball” her, as it is called; ie. a great number of
workers cluster close around her, making a compact
ball about the size of an egg, and thus delicately
smother her royal highness with much attention. Get-
ting rid of unwelcome royalty by the process of smother-
ing is not unknown in our own annals. This method
is probably adopted by bees through their instinct of
never inflicting wounds upon an active queen; it is to
be noted that if a queen bee is disabled, she is killed by
ordinary methods and pitched out of the hive, thus

66 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

showing conclusively that it is the function of royalty
rather than the person that is respected.

THe WoRKERS AND CITIZENS

The workers constitute by far the greater part of the
insect societies; as their name implies, they carry on
the industries and business affairs of the community.
In the case of ants, bees, and wasps the workers are
females whose’ reproductive organs are undeveloped.
Among the termites the workers are both male and
female, but with similarly rudimentary reproductive
systems. Thus it seems that the bearing of young is
found incompatible with business life in insect societies.

Not so, however, is the care of the young; this is
always considered one of the most important of the
industries of the commune. Among the bees and ants
the care of the young is relegated to the younger
sisters, although the elders do not scorn these duties
if they find their performance necessary. The first
work of the ant or bee just emerged from the pupa
state is that of nurse, and a most tender and devoted
one she is. Hspecially are the ant nurses solicitous
about the health and comfort of their small charges.
In some species the young ant grubs are assorted into
sizes, those of the same age being kept in the same
apartment, suggesting a graded school. When the ant

THE PERFECT SOCIALISM 67

babies are hungry they stretch up like young birds, and
their nurses regurgitate partly digested food into the
gaping, hungry mouths. The nurses keep them very
clean by licking them with their long tongues, and,
what is more interesting, are very careful to keep them
in the right temperature. When the sun shines hot on
the nest in the morning the nurses carry their charges
to the lower compartments, but toward night they
carry them again to the upper nurseries. The nurses
show great interest in the young when they emerge
from the pupa state, helping them to straighten out
their newly freed antenne and legs, then taking a
hand at their education by leading them around the
city and showing them the ways of the formic world.

All the members of the insect commune are shining
lights in their devotion to the young. The moment an
ant nest is attacked those citizens who are not detailed
to fight the imtruders will snatch up the babies and flee
with them to places of safety; or when hard pressed
will fight to the death for their protection. This is
worthy of note, since it is not the mother instinct for
saving her young but is a race instinct instead. It
may be here stated that the objects popularly known
as ants’ eggs are not the eggs, but the young grub ants
or pupe; the eggs are too small to be seen well with
the naked eye.

68 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

The more successful the insect colony, the greater the
number of young. Consider once the labor of the bee
nurses, who may have, in strong colonies, twelve thou-
sand hungry babies to feed every day. The work of
the young bees is truly onerous; for they not only have
to be children’s nurses but also have to feed the queen
and drones, construct the comb, cap the larve cells,
keep the hive clean, and keep it well ventilated by a
process of draughts set up by using their wings as
fans.

To secure the food for the whole society occupies the
time of the older and majority of the members of the
colony. Among the bees the workers are physically
modified for their labors. The hind legs are broadened
and concave above, so as to form baskets for the carry-
ing of pollen. Between the segments and the lower
side of the abdomen are glands for the secretion of wax.
Two segments of the hind legs are formed, so as to
make forceps to remove the plates of wax after they
are secreted.

One of the most taxing of the bee industries is the
making of wax. Bees gorge themselves with honey,
then hang themselves up in festoons, or curtains, to
the hive, and remain quiescent for hours; after a time
wax scales appear, forced out from the wax pockets.
The bees remove these scales with their natural forceps,

THE PERFECT SOCIALISM 69

carry the wax to the mouth, and chew it for a time,
thus changing it chemically. Thus it may be seen that
wax-making is a great expense to the colony, for it
costs not only the time of the workers but it is esti-
mated that twenty-one pounds of honey is required to
make one pound of wax. As a matter of fact much of
bee labor is that of the manufacturing chemist. Raw
material does not suit their fastidious taste; thus all
the honey, their chief food, they take from the nec-
taries of flowers as cane sugar, and in the honey
stomach mix it with a secretion which changes it into
grape sugar.

Bees are unwearying workers; they share with the
workers of other insect societies an utter recklessness
as to their own individual safety and preservation.
When a bee goes out for honey she also collects pollen,
so that she comes back heavily laden and flying low
and slowly. It is no wonder that an ancient Greek
writer, noting the pollen upon the legs of a laden bee,
states that on Hymettus the bees tie little pebbles to
their legs to hold them down. The lavish wastefulness
of individual life is shown by the relative longevity of
bees during the working and resting season. Those
individuals matured in the fall will live eight or nine
months, while in the height of the honey season a bee
will wear herself out in a month.

70 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

The hours of labor among the ant workers are
greater than among bees, as they have been observed
working until late at night. Some of the species im hot
countries wisely do their labor at night, resting in
their nests during the heat of the day. There seems
to be more originality and variety to the labors of ant
workers than we find among bee workers. The foragers
bring back a great variety of food for the house-
keepers and the young. Certain species in dry coun-
tries provision their nests for the winter. The ants
perform Herculean labors while excavating their tunnels
as well as when carrying great burdens of food. The
worker ants have a delightful habit of taking naps
when they are tired. McCook describes their sleepmg
positions thus : —

“Some are squatted down on their abdomens and
last two pairs of legs; some le upon their sides ; some
are resting upon the hind legs, standing on tip-toe;
some are crouched upon the earth with faces downward ;
several are piled one on top of another.’ When they
awaken they stretch and yawn in the most naive and
human manner. In an ant’s nest one thing is most
noticeable ; however crowded the galleries may be, and
however much the ants may be obliged to crawl over
and push each other, they do it with the utmost good
nature. Another noticeable thing is the free way in

THE PERFECT SOCIALISM 71

which the foragers feed the hungry. An individual
seldom asks in vain for food. In spite of the thriftiness,
the instinct of sharing is stronger than the instinct of
accumulation. The generosity of these insect citizens
toward each other is an ideal which still lies beyond the
horizon of accomplishment in the human world.

The termite workers are of both sexes, and their
industry is such that they prove a terrible plague in
the tropical countries, where they abound. Our native
species tunnel their nests in wood, and are, in fact, very
skilful engineers, for they build covered ways, under
which they work. A feat not only of engineering skill
but skill in reasonmg came to our eyes in our own
insectary. <A piece of rotten wood tunnelled by termites
was put on a formicary which consisted of a board sur-
rounded by a moat filled with water. As the queens of
our native termites have never been discovered, we are
unable to keep these little creatures contented in artifi-
cial nests. Thus the ones under observation were
always seeking avenues of escape. They tried the moat
at every point. Finally they observed that one end of
their nest-log projected out beyond the outer edge of the
moat, although several inches above it. At once they
commenced building a covered way straight down from
the projecting end, thus bridging the hated ditch with
neatness and despatch.

72 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

Division of labor is carried to extremes among the
honey-ants. In this species there is a caste whose
business it is to form reservoirs for the storing of food.
The storage individuals receive all the honey which the
workers bring in. The crop becomes much enlarged,
until it distends the entire abdomen. One of these little
honey vats looks like a large currant, with head, thorax,
and legs attached to one side. These very accom-
modating citizens hang to the roofs of the galleries of
the nests, and during seasons of famine give up to their
hungry sisters their surplus honey.

The detailing of certain duties to certain individuals
has been alluded to in the discussion of the use of young
citizens as nurses. Among the Jeaf-cutter ants of Texas
the citizens work in gangs or relays. Certain indi-
viduals climb the trees and cut off the leaves, which
drop to the ground ; there they are gathered up by other
individuals, who carry them to the nest. Mr. McCook
reports seeing three divisions thus at work in one ant’s
nest. He has evidence also that im some species the
ants work in divisions while excavating their under-
ground tunnels. This shows that they have a compre-
hension of the value of economy in labor.

The driver ants of Africa form living bridges and
ladders through individuals clinging to each other until
the rope is long enough to reach the desired point.

THE PERFECT SOCIALISM 73

The marching hordes behind pass over these living
bridges.

In the nests of bees, ants, and wasps, sentinels are
stationed at the entrances, who give alarm in case of
attack. In one species of ants, who make the entrances
to the nests very small, the sentinels use their own
heads for the gates. The advantages of this living
portcullis are obvious, as no enemy could surprise the
nest without awakening the sentinel. Ants, as a
general thing, are careful about closing their doors at
night. Mr. McCook gives most interesting accounts of
the duties of the gate-closers in the nests of the Occident
ant. The gate-closers work both from the outside and
inside; the last ones outside leaving a small opening
through which they push mto the nests, finishing
the task from within. One of the species of slave
ants defends its nest by throwing up _ earthworks
at the gates, so as to impede the progress of the
invaders.

CoMMUNAL WEALTH

The property of insect societies consists of their
dwellings, stored food, live stock, and slaves. We are
met at the outset with the question whether insects
have a true sense of property. If property be defined
as a legal right to the ownership, use, enjoyment, and

74 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

disposal of a thing, then we have certainly much to
prove. The laws of insect communes may only be
known through the actions of the communists. To us
it seems that their sense of property is such as charac-
terizes primitive peoples, whose unwritten laws are
defined by brute force. The haste with which the ants
remove their youngsters in case of attack can scarcely
be classed under the sense of property rights, although
in no instance does the mother of the young act as
their defender. The state cares for the children, and
the state defends them. However, the situation is some-
what different when it comes to the question of stored
food. The bees and the agricultural ants store up food
in the summer for use in the winter. Our common ants
use plant lice for their milch cows, and in all of these
cases the owners show by their actions a clear sense of
property rights.

That bees have this sense is shown through their
actions in defending their stores from other plundering
swarms. Bee-robbing usually takes place when there
is little nectar to be taken from flowers, and probably
hunger incites to ill-gotten gain. It is interesting to
note that strong colonies are seldom attacked, the
weaker ones being the victims. The fury with which
the owners of the honey fight for its retention is
sufficient, when once seen, to convince any doubter

THE PERFECT SOCIALISM 75

that bees, at least, have a sense of property. When
the robbed swarm is overcome and the queen killed the
bees will desert and join the robbers, and help carry
their own stores to the hive of the marauders. This
shows that it is a matter of property and not individual
animosity which inspires them, otherwise they would
fight to the death. Bee hunters say that when taking
up a bee-tree, or a beehive for that matter, the bees
will fight furiously until their comb is actually broken ;
then they give up, and, defeated and despairing, cluster
on the broken comb, making no further effort to save
themselves. There is something touching in the story
of these brave little defenders of stores and home, and
their utter discouragement when they see their treasure
broken and ruined. “Taking up” bee-trees and_bee-
hives is a barbarous performance, and does not redound
to the honor of man; and the thought of it quite recon-
ciles one to all of the bee-stings inflicted upon human
beings since time began.

Another sign of the sense of ownership of stored pro-
vision is the care given it by the harvester ants of
Texas and India. These wise harvesters store their
seeds in underground granaries for winter use. After
the rains come, the grain, if let alone, would naturally
germinate or become mouldy. The ants comprehend
this, and when good weather comes again they bring

76 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

the grain up and dry it in the hot sun, and then return
it to the granaries.

The most interesting instance of food provision by
the ants is given by Professor Wheeler, who has shown
that the leaf-cutter ants of Texas cut and drag leaves
into their nests for the sake of the edible fungus that
grows upon them there; these ants are true mushroom
growers.

Of all the property belonging to ants, probably the
plant-lice are cared for with most forethought and
intelligence. The fact that the ants used the aphids
for milch cows was discovered nearly a century ago, but
the special care they give to their live stock has been
a subject of more recent study. Almost any one may
have observed ants running up and down the trunks
of trees and shrubs. It is no joy of climbing nor
desire for a wide outlook that leads the ants to ascend
trees, but because the leaves of the trees afford pas-
turage for their small cattle, the aphids. These little
creatures exude voluntarily drops of a sweet liquid
known as honey dew. The process of milking is this:
the ant comes up to the aphid and pats it on the back
with her antenne, at which the flattered and pleased
aphid gives forth the honey dew from the alimentary
canal, which the ant eats with every sign of enjoyment.
It might seem at first glance that the benefits of this

THE PERFECT SOCIALISM 17

relationship accrue only to the ants. However, this is
not the case. The ants are fierce defenders of their
flocks, and make it very
uncomfortable for the
many insect enemies of
the aphids. Some species
of ants build sheds over
the aphids upon the trees
(Fig. 29), and other spe-
cles remove them to the
safety of their own nests;
but the special claim of
the ants as aphid protectors lies in the care of the aphid
eggs, which are shown as much attention as their own.

This habit of ants has proven of economic importance
to our farmers of the middle west. One of the serious
pests in that region is the corn-root plant-louse. Pro-
fessor Forbes has demonstrated that these corn-root lice
are absolutely dependent on the ants which live in the
earth of the corn-fields. Ants fetch the last brood of
aphids in the fall into their nests, and there the ovipa-
rous generation is developed, and the eggs are laid.
The ants give these eggs great care, taking them into
the deeper galleries during cold weather and fetching
them to the surface in warm days. When the young
aphids hatch, the ants take them and place them upon

Fig. 29. An Ant Cow-shed.

78 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

the roots of the young corn, and thus gain a nucleus
for their summer herds. This shows a process of reason-
ing on the part of the ants, since they do not feed upon
corn roots themselves, and yet seem to know that the
aphids require this food.

Minitary Forces, SLAVERY, AND WAR

Only among termites is there a strictly soldier caste.
To this belong both males and females, which are dis-
tinguished by having very large heads, armed with
strong jaws. The soldiers never do any work for the
colony, but hold themselves within the nest, ready to
defend it in case of attack. Strike a termite nest with
a stick and instantly the little workers, busy with con-
struction, will disappear, and the soldiers will rush out
pell-mell, ready to throw themselves upon the intruder.
If they see no enemy, they retire, and their places are
taken by the workers, who proceed to repair the nest
with great rapidity. The soldiers have a habit of
striking their great jaws against the wood of the nest,
making a clicking sound; the workers respond to this
signal with a hiss. Some naturalists have believed
this knocking by the soldiers was an assurance that
the coast was clear. Some have believed that it was
a command to hasten, as the workers seem to hustle
about faster after hearing it. As the termites do not

THE PERFECT SOCIALISM 79

carry on wars, the termite soldier is a guard to the nest
rather than an aggressive foe.

Among bees and ants the soldiers are workers imbued
with the spirit of warriors; as they are all females they
may well be called Amazons. Here the industrial ener-
gies of the peaceful citizen are changed into those of a
fighting militia under provocations most human. In
the history of all the battles of earth we have no
records of more reckless bravery or more undaunted
facing of death than we find in the battles of bees and
ants. The recklessness of the individual for her own
life is shown by the fact that a bee, ant, or wasp,
will attack a man or a horse, single-handed, without a
moment’s hesitation.

So perfect is socialism among ants that even slavery
is robbed of some of its evils. The question may well
be asked why slavery should be needed when once a
perfect socialism is established. This is answered by the
fact that selfishness is in this case characteristic of the
community rather than the individual. Slaves are of
great economic importance to an ant colony, although
the direct benefit to any individual in the ant-hill is not
obvious.

When a slave-making colony sets out on an expedi-
tion for capturing slaves, the warriors march in solid
column to the nests of the victims and throw them-

80 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

selves upon it with great fury. Their object, how-
ever, is robbery and not murder. They never attempt
to enslave the mature ants but take the young grubs
to be brought up in future slavery. They have no
intention of exterminating the slave colonies, and thus
shut off future supplies; therefore they do not kill
any more of the defenders than is necessary in order
to capture the larva. These young ones carried to
the nests of their captors are there cared for as ten-
derly as their masters’ own, and when they reach the
adult age they work as cheerfully as they would have
done in their own nests. They share the esprit de
corps of their adopted country, as is shown by the
fact that when their masters return from a marauding
expedition laden with live booty the slaves rush out
to meet them joyfully and help them bring in the
stolen larvee; but when the masters come home empty-
handed, the slaves are surly and sometimes even
refuse for a time to let them come back into the
nests.

That the object of slave-makers in carrying off the
young of the slave species is to get workers for their
own colony is clearly evinced by the modifications of
the habits of the masters made by the presence of
slaves in their nests. All the slave-making species
become more or less dependent upon their slaves.

Fic. 30. The Dwelling of a Wasp Commune.

82 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

The tendency is for the slaves to do the work of the
commune, leaving the fighting for their masters. The
Amazon ants described by Huber have become so de-
pendent on their slaves that they no longer have the
ability to make their nests, feed their young, or even
feed themselves. Huber made a famous experiment
by putting thirty of the Amazons with their young
in a box with some food. All of them were on the
verge of starvation, and some were even dead, when
Huber introduced one of the slaves, who immediately
resuscitated the fainting Amazons by feeding them,
took care of the young, and made a nest, and, single-
handed, established order.

The Amazons had retained only the power of fight-
ing, for they were still most skilful and intrepid
warriors. An instance of their martial acumen is shown
in this observation by Huber: When they attacked
the nests of their usual slaves, the pacific negro ants,
they made the onslaught in solid column, made sure
of their booty, and then scattered in disorder, each
reaching the home nest as best she could. The negro
ants are not good fighters, so this method of retreat
was feasible. When there were no negro nests to
pillage, the Amazons enslaved the miner ants, who
are brave and tenacious fighters and follow the foe to
their own gates rather than give up their young to

THE PERFECT SOCIALISM 83

slavery. When the Amazons attacked the miner nests
they not only approached in solid column, but retreated
in solid column, being thus enabled to meet their assail-
ants to better advantage and showing themselves pos-
sessed of strategic powers of no mean sort.

The reasons for war among social insects, so far as
we may observe, are based upon a sense of ownership
of property; 7.e. robbery of stored food, taking of
slaves, and infrmgement of territorial rights. The
wars may exist between different colonies of the same
species or between different species. Among ants the
different species vary greatly as to bravery and skill in
warfare. The battles are fought by hand-to-hand con-
flict, and as the pre-gunpowder battles in our own
history were most deadly, so are these ant battles, which
only stop when there are no more soldiers left to fight.
The weapons of the ant warrior are always strong jaws
and in some species a venomous sting; our common
species have the power of forcibly ejecting on their foes
the very irritating formic acid, a sort of emmet vitriol.

The most skilled fighters among the species of ants
march to battle in a solid column; when once there the
mélée resolves itself into a series of duels. Two
enemies, approaching each other, rear on their hind legs,
throw acid on each other, and then close in deadly
combat, each trying to cut the other in twain. Often

84 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

when two are struggling thus help will arrive from
either side; then there is a trial of strength among
many, and an effort to take prisoners. Woe to the
captured warrior, for “no quarter to prisoners”’ is
one of the laws of emmet wars, and death comes
swiftly and surely to the stranger within the gates
of an ant republic. As night falls upon the battle-
field there is a retreat of the soldiers to their respective
' cities, but morning finds them at their posts again with
valor undiminished. The carnage of these battles is
terrible to behold. The field is strewn with the remains
of the dead and dying; two enemies are often found
clenched in deadly embrace. The ant is the bulldog of
the insect world: when she once gets hold she never
lets go; though she may be torn in twain, her jaws
will not relax. Many an ant victor wears involun-
tarily all her life, as a trophy of her prowess, the
head of her vanquished enemy firmly fixed by its jaws
to her leg.

CoMMUNAL HaBITATIONS

The architecture of social insects is remarkable in its
skilful adaptation to the needs of the commune. For
ages the beauty and regularity of honeycomb have been
the wonder and delight of mathematicians, who have
shown its economy by much computation. Some have

THE PERFECT SOCIALISM 85

claimed that the hexagonal cell was a matter of neces-
sity, the result of pressure; but as the bees start the
cells at their bases in hexagonal shape, and as they
hollow out in a triangular pyramid a perfect rhomb in
the bottom of the cell, I think we must concede to them
some powers of the geometrician. Surely no mansions
made of marble carven by the hand of man are more
wonderful or beautiful in their structure than a perfect
honeycomb. The power of bees to take industrial
advantage of a situation is shown by the readiness with
which they use the commercial foundation-comb intro-
duced by apiarists to save their bees the expense of
wax-making.

Wasps were the first and original paper makers, and
as geometricians and architects vie with their relatives,
the bees. One has only to study the stories in that
gray apartment house called a wasps’ nest to be filled
with admiration for the skill of the builders. The
wasps build their nests of a material made by gathering
bits of weather-worn wood and chewing them up, mak-
ing a true paper pulp. These builders are equal to
emergencies. Once we involuntarily unroofed a wasps’
nest that was under a board. Several days later we
discovered that the nest was well roofed by neat paper
shingles. Never before, probably, had these wasps or
their ancestors been called upon to roof a domicile, but

86 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

these did this original work with evident knowledge of
the principles of roof-construction.

Ants’ nests vary greatly inform and method of build-
ing. The most familiar of these are our so-called ant-
hills. Such a nest consists of deep underground galleries
and is very well fitted for housing the commonwealth.

Of all the species of ants of the United States, the
agricultural ants show the greatest skill in city building
and municipal improvements. The most interesting of
these are the so-called flat-disk nests. These disks mark
the position of the underground nest, and vary in size
from four to ten feet in diameter. They are level and
hard, and kept free from all vegetation, except at cer-
tain seasons when a species of grass, upon whose seeds
the ants feed, is allowed to grow. Near the centre of a
disk are one or two openings; these gates open into ©
vestibules below, from which galleries lead to a system
‘of rooms arranged in regular stories. These rooms are
used as granaries and nurseries, and the nest may ex-
tend several feet below the surface of the ground.
From the disks radiate roads leading out into the
fields. These roads are hard and smooth; they are two
or three inches wide at the opening on the disk, and are
sometimes sixty feet long; they are evidently made to
facilitate the work of the harvesters when bringing
home their grain. If, during the winter, when the ants

Fic, 31, Neighborly Communes.

88 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

are underground, there is a growth of any sort upon the
disks, or roads, it is cut down in the spring and every-
thing cleared up. Be

These ants, as observed by Mr. McCook, were skillful
engineers when cutting down the tough grass. The
twisting process was often resorted to in severing a
stem; and the use of the lever seemed to be understood,
as they were observed to cut a blade at its base, then
climb it to the end, thus bending it over and complet-
ing the fracture. The food of these ants is grain of
different kinds, which is gathered when ripe, taken to
the granaries, hulled, and stored for winter use. These
are the ants which take their seeds out to dry after the
rains. The grass which they allow to grow on their
disks is called “ant rice.” The older observers believed
that they planted it there, but this is not proven. How-
ever, they evidently find it useful, or they would destroy
it as they do other grasses.

Tue [Ipentity oF INTERESTS

The identity of interests in insect societies is shown
in many ways; but perhaps in no better way than by the
cheerfulness with which they feed each other and the
good nature which they evince toward each other in
their crowded nests when carrying on their common

THE PERFECT SOCIALISM 89

industries. Methods of communication approaching to
language exist among social insects, but what they say
or exactly how they say is as yet largely a mystery to
us. They can inform each other of the discovery of
food, as is shown by many experiments. Sentinels are
enabled by some means to arouse and alarm a whole
colony with great celerity. But perhaps nothing is so
wonderful about them as their ability to recognize
members of their own commonwealth. This is a power
beyond our ken, and cannot be compared with our rec-
ognition of individuals. Lubbock has shown that ants
of the same nest recognize each other after being sepa-
rated for nearly two years; also that when pupx are
taken from a nest and matured in a strange colony
they were still recognized when they were returned to
their own people. He also divided an ants’ nest before
the eggs were laid, and let each half develop its own
young. Then he brought the two halves together
again, and young and old alike recognized each other
as kindred. Lubbock also showed that ants were
able to distinguish their own intoxicated friends from
strangers likewise intoxicated. In this experiment the
ants seemed greatly disturbed by the disgraceful condi-
tion of their fellows, but they carried them into the
nest for further care, while they summarily dumped the
drunken strangers into the moat.

90 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

MuniIcipAL SANITATION

Ants, bees, and wasps are exceedingly cleanly in their
municipal arrangements. This cleanliness is necessary
surely in such teeming cities. All dirt is removed from
the nest and the dead are carefully disposed of. The
bees throw their deceased outside the hive; but the
ants show a leaning toward cemeteries some distance
from the nests. The sight of the dead above ground
seems to disturb an ant’s sense of the fitness of things.
Mrs. Treat has observed that the red, slave-making
species never deposit the slaves with their own dead
but have separate cemeteries for them.

Personal habits of social insects are also very cleanly;
they brush and lick themselves with great assiduity.
The bees have a special antennszs comb developed on
the front leg, a circular aperture set with spines,
through which the antenne may be drawn. The ants
have developed a regular comb in the form of a spur
on the tibia of the front leg. This spur is set with
strong spines, and is used by the ant exactly as we
would use a comb and brush. Ants often lend a
helping mandible or tongue to their fellows when per-
forming toilet duties, amicably licking each other clean.

Ants carry each other about under some circum-
stances. The one carried curls up like a kitten, mak-

THE PERFECT SOCIALISM 91

ing a convenient bundle. When a colony decides to
move its city, some of the ants select the new site,
and commence carrying there not only the young and
treasure but also their sister ants who are not alive to
the necessity of removal. Sometimes the one seized
upon in this summary fashion objects; but this in no-
wise daunts the energetic mover, who hales her sister to
the new home whether she will or no.

The older writers tell us of play spells among ants.
During these times the inhabitants of an ant-hill in-
dulge in wrestling games and gymnastics.

There are certain small insects which ants allow to
dwell within their nests. So far as we can see, these
guests are of no advantage to the ants, and it has been
suggested that they are kept as pets. This is the only
plausible theory to account for their presence in pre-
cincts where no intruders are tolerated.

Considering all the things we have discussed, and
many other observed facts, for which there is no room in
this brief sketch, it must be conceded that these insects
are perfect socialists. We find that the individual is
kind and self-sacrificing for its own commonwealth ;
and selfishness and cruelty and all the baser passions
are aroused only in rivalry between communities. We
find that the love of their kind is developed at the
expense of all individual loves and hatreds. It is

92 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

necessary that individual interests be subordinated in
a perfect socialism; the communal instincts alone must
vivify the individual. It may be claimed that these
socialists are only insects, but the fact remains that
they are the most intelligent creatures in this world
that have, up to the present, made socialism a success.

It seems, then, from our study, that the most serious
question that confronts our socialists of to-day is how
to make man, in whom the individual instinct has
grown strong through eons of development, conform
to a plan in which the greatest success is attained
only by the total effacement of individuality. It will
surely require a large plan to imclude the greatest
development of the individual and the utter levelling
of social mequality— two tendencies that have ever
pointed in diametrically opposite directions.

EPILOGUE: INDIVIDUALISM AS TAUGHT BY THE BEzES

After studying the social development of these little
creatures We are again reminded that when the course
of evolution is set in one direction everything conduces
to make that path the main road of progress and devel-
opment. At first, and in the lower forms of life, it is
the individual against the world. The next step is the
union of two and the care of the young by one or both
parents. Then it is the family against the world, the

THE PERFECT SOCIALISM 93

path of progress broadens so that at least two walk
side by side. Then comes the forming of the individ-
uals and families into societies, and many unite for the
sake of protection or other advantage; and now the
road is widened to admit many walking abreast; but
they must press on shoulder to shoulder and the rear
ranks perhaps in lock-step. The individual is no longer
important except as he helps the whole; and any indi-
vidual deviation from the beaten path is pronounced
criminal by society and stamped out by evolution as
a useless variation.

In the first and lower stage the individual is a per-
fect sphere, fully rounded in individuality. He owes
nothing to the world; and utter selfishness is right for
him because that is the path of his development. In
the second stage the individual is no longer a perfect
sphere but is flattened on two sides; he must sacrifice
self for the sake of his mate and offspring. Then the
social unit is composed of two or three cells, none of
them perfectly rounded individuals; it is then two or
three against the world. Then societies are formed
and the organism is many celled; the individual is no
longer rounded on any side; his rights are modified by
the rights of every one around him; he now receives
protection from the whole, and his individual develop-
ment is modified by the laws that tend to the ultimate

94 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

good of the whole; only those individual traits are
allowed to persist that are parallel with the direction
of progress of the whole organism.

Great thinkers, philosophers, and poets, impatient
of the restrictions that come from being one cell in
a vast organism, have cried out for the divine right
of a perfect self-development; many of our socialists
and all of our anarchists are animated by this over-
whelming longing for perfect self-rounding. But they
forget that the monad is an anachronism in society;
the only possible chance for the human being to attain
the perfect sphere of the individual is to retire to the
desert and live a hermit. If he remains a part of the
social organism and attempts to swell out the sphere of
self to its pristine proportions, he is promptly secluded
to four bare walls, where a well-rounded individuality
does as little damage to others as possible; or, escaping
this, he goes on fighting fate and disturbing the symme-
try of the cells that press upon him for a little time, and
is then thrown out by evolution as one of the great unfit.

All social struggles and revolutions of to-day come.
from the fact that the areas flattened by pressure of the
several sides of the individual cells of the organism
termed “society” are not yet settled and adjusted to the
best advantage of the whole. We have only to wait to
attain the perfect social mechanism of the bees.

Fig. 32. Some Bush or Tree near a Stream.

Vv
TWO MOTHER MASONS

HESE are no female seekers after
secrets of the masonic order, though
they were free and accepted masons
long before Solomon built his tem-
ple. They do not use the square
and compass in their building be-
cause they do not need them.

However, each of them has a pair of trowels which she

uses with great dexterity. They are real ladies, too, these

masons. There can be no doubt about it, for they have
waists so slender and aristocratic that they would make
the figures of a Parisian fashion-plate seem coarse in com-
parison. In fact, the waist in these masons is reduced
to the size of a thread, and it seems almost impossible
that the digestive organs can traverse so narrow a space
and remain functional. This peculiarity gives the name
to these masons of “ Thread-waisted Wasps,” for wasps
they are. We must confess, however, physiologists to
the contrary, that the slenderness of these “ elegant
figures” has no deleterious effect upon the health and
96

TWO MOTHER MASONS 97

strength of their owners. In fact there seems to be
a distinct use for this extreme emaciation of the waist,
for the abdomen is attached to it more. or less like a
knob; and if one of these wasps 1s carefully watched when
flying, it is evident that the abdomen and long legs are
carried in a manner to secure poise, and perhaps are also
used in steering the insect in its strong, direct flight.

The first of these feminine masons for our consid-

eration is Pelopeus cementarius, the “Cement Maker,”
popularly known as the “Mud ~.
Dauber.” She is a graceful
insect, with a shining black
body and black wings that
give off rainbow glints in the
sunshine (Fig. 33). She is a
most nervous and _ fidgety
being, and keeps her wings jerking when she is walk-
ing around, as if she had the St. Vitus’ dance. Mayhap
her nervousness comes from the burden of family cares ;
they all fall upon her, as her spouse is a short-lived, in-
dolent fellow, who never dreams of lending her a helping
mandible in the construction of the home.

It is safe to assert that in the insect world the ques-
tion of “ woman’s rights ” is settled permanently in the
affirmative. With few exceptions the insect husband
and father is a care-free, irresponsible individual, who

Fig. 33. ‘A fidgety being.”

98 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

gives no consideration to the sheltering or feeding of
his family. On the other hand, many insect mothers
wear themselves out in unselfish toil in caring for their
young. Both of our lady masons ply their trade solely
for the housing of their offspring.

The Cement Maker is well named. We find her in
early summer very busy at the edges of pools and in
other damp places collecting mud; this she mixes with
saliva into a strong mortar by means of her trowel
jaws. This mortar she uses to build the mud houses,
with which we who dwell in country places are so
familiar. They are constructed beneath the rafters and
roof boards of barns and sheds, or any building where
the wasp can gain access, and consist of two or more
parallel tubes about an inch long. On the inside the
tubes are smooth and regular, but the outside of the
structure is rough and rude, with no architectural
pretensions. That this wasp knows how to make a
very adhesive cement those of us can attest who have
tried to remove all traces of one of her dwellings. She
is in the habit of consulting her own convenience rather
than ours in choosing sites for her houses. One year
she or one of her relatives plastered up all the keyholes
in one of our bureaus so effectually that the locks were
afterward useless. Another utilized a sand hole in the
side of a flat-iron, little dreaming what would happen

TWO MOTHER MASONS 99

to her progeny next ironing day. Another found the
telephone a convenient place for locating a house; and
a few years since one species of the Cement Makers
acquired the habit of building in the ends of the air-
brake tubes of the cars on one of the western railroads.
The management, frightened by visions of inevitable
collisions, sought counsel of experts. “Make a slit
opening to the tube,” was the efficacious advice of the
entomologist.

After the Cement Maker has finished her first tube
she leaves one end open and flies off in quest of her
prey. Now the wasp is not a vegetarian like the bee,
and she has before her the duty of supplying her young
with meat rather than bread. As her eggs are laid in
hot weather, and as enough food must be stored in the
cell with the egg to mature the larva, the question is
how to preserve meat fresh for so long a time. She
meets the difficulty thus: she hunts for spiders and
when she finds one she pounces upon it, stings it, and car-
ries it to the mud cell and places it within. She repeats
this process until she has placed as many spiders in the
tube as, according to her judgment, will be needed. She
then lays an egg in the cell and walls up the opening.

The remarkable thing about this performance is the
magical effect of her sting. Whether it is the result
of a subtle poison or whether it is the special spot in

100 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

the spider’s nervous system where the sting is inserted
we do not know; certain it is that after being thus stung
it lives on in a paralyzed condition for weeks and even
months. It can move but slightly and remains helpless
in its mud prison until the wasp egg hatches into a
voracious grub which at once falls to and eats with
great relish the meat thus miraculously preserved.

One observation made by Walcknaer upon a mason
wasp that provisions her nest with bees, seems to indi-
cate that, in one case at least, the place selected for
stinging caused the paralysis. He says, “The wasp
pounces upon the bee, seizes it by the back, and placing
it by the side of a small stone or pile of earth she
turns it around upon its back, then standing on its
body in an attitude of conscious triumph she darts her
sting into the lower part of the head in such a manner
as to stupefy but not to kill it outright.”

Whether the sting renders the spider insensible to
pain or not is a question that only the spider could
answer. However, it is probable that it does. Any-
way we need waste no sympathy on the spider, the most
bloodthirsty of all the “little people” of the field and
woods. There is indeed a sense of retributive justice -
in the thought of a spider helpless and at the mercy
of a small creature which it would have ruthlessly
devoured had it been able.

TWO MOTHER MASONS 101

So we should not accuse our Cement Maker of any
unreasonable cruelty, if she, like us, insists upon a nitrog-
enous diet for her young. Nor need we have any fear
of her sting, as she seldom uses it as a weapon of offence
or defence; in any case the pain occasioned by her
sting is trivial. The Cement Maker is really one of the
most harmless and one of the most interesting of the
summer Visitors to our window-panes.

The other mother mason is Luwimenes fraterna, the
Jug Builder. In appearance she is far more gay than
the Cement Maker, the dark bronze of her graceful body
being ornamented with yellow bars and spots. Her
esthetic sense is also better developed than is that of
her black cousin, and she is also a more clever artisan.
However, in the matter of strength and durability, the
Cement Maker’s structures are superior.

Some fine morning in early spring the Jug Builder
selects some twig of bush or tree that is conveniently
near the banks of a brook or pond and on this begins
to construct her nest. Her building material consists of
sand or gravel which she cements together with mud
mixed with saliva. This cement is similar to that of the
Mud Dauber; but the latter constructs her nest entirely
of cement while the Jug Builder is a stone layer as
well as a plasterer. The Jug Builder’s walls when ex-
amined with a lens look like the walls of a cobblestone

102 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

house laid with more mortar than cobblestones. It is
interesting to note that this small mason understands
the value of hair as a strengthening ingredient in her
mortar and so uses every stray hair she can find. She
makes her walls in layers and is most careful to pre-
serve the symmetry of her building as she proceeds.
When finished,
the nest is
globular in
shape, with an
opening at the
top that flares
gracefully at
the rim; the
whole looks
very much like
a minute olla
or Mexican
water jug. While this little cobblestone dwelling is
necessarily somewhat rough outside it is very smooth

Fic. 34. The Jug Builder and her Nests.

_ inside and apparently silk lined. Just how the wasp
makes this lming we do not know, for the adult wasp is
supposed to have no means of spinning silk. Some en-
tomologists have suggested that the larva lines the nest,
but no one who has examined with a lens the walls of
this little dwelling could but believe that the smooth

TWO MOTHER MASONS 103

fibrous lining was a part of the original construction.
Perhaps the wasp covers the inner walls with a saliva
that in drying splits into silklike fibres. However, if
the Humenes suspend the egg as Fabre declares, uneY
must have some means of spinning silk.

When the nest is finished as described, the mother
mason turns hunter, and caterpillars are her quarry.
She stings them as she catches them, as did the Mud
Dauber the spiders; however, the Jug Builder does ‘not
seem to have so powerful a weapon, for the cater-
pillars are imperfectly paralyzed. They are still able
to wriggle in a quite disconcertmg manner after she
has dumped them down through the opening into the
jug. After she has secured a sufficient number of
these to sustain her young until it has reached matu-
rity she lays an egg and fastens it to the dome of the
nest ; this is, perhaps, the reason that the opening to the
jug is always a little at the side. After the egg is laid
she closes the opening by filling it with a cork of cement.

The story of what goes on in the Hwmenes’ nest after
the mother has walled up the cell has been told with
great vivacity and most dramatically by the French
entomologist, J.-H. Fabre. He made little windows
in the sides of the jugs, and so was able to see what
had always before been shrouded in mystery and dark-
ness. He says :—

104 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

“The egg is not deposited on the food; it is sus-
pended from the summit of the dome by a thread
which rivals in fineness that of the web of the spider.
At the least breath the delicate cylinder trembles,
oscillates; it recalls to me the famous pendulum
attached to the cupola of the Pantheon in order to
demonstrate the rotation of the earth. The food is
heaped below.

“Second act of this marvellous spectacle: in order
to look on, let us open a window in cells until fortune
smiles on us. The larva is hatched and is already
growing up. Like the egg, it is suspended vertically
a little way from the floor of the dwelling; but the
suspending thread has notably increased in length and
is composed of the first thread to which is added a sort
of a ribbon. The larva is at table; with lowered head
it is burrowing in the flabby body of one of the cater-
pulars. With the tip of a straw I touched lightly
the game as yet intact. The caterpillars squirmed.
Instantly the larva retired from the mélée. And how?
Marvel upon marvel! That which I had taken for a
flat band, for a ribbon at the lower end of the sus-
pending thread, is a sheath, a robe, a tube of ascension,
in which the larva crept up backwards. The cast skin
of the egg-shell, preserved cylindrical and prolonged
perchance by a special work of the newly hatched

TWO MOTHER MASONS 105

larva, forms this channel of refuge. At the least sign
of peril in the heap of caterpillars, the larva retreats
into its sheath and climbs to the roof, where the writh-
ing mob cannot reach it. When quiet is restored,
it creeps down its tube and commences eating again,
with head lowered upon the food and the abdomen
aloft ready for retreat upward.

“Third and last act: strength has been attained ;
the larva is sufficiently vigorous to be no longer afraid
of the movements of the heap of caterpillars. They,
on the other hand, eaten into by the larva, attenuated
by the long torpor, are less able to defend themselves.
The perils of the tender newly born are succeeded by
the security of robust adolescence; and the larva dis-
daining thereafter its ascension sheath lets itself down
on its remaining food. Thus it banquets afterwards in
the ordinary manner of its family.”

Our emotions upon reading these revelations of the
drama that takes place in the Humenes’ cell depend
upon whether our sympathies are with the wasp or
the caterpillars. However, in studying the histories
of animals, we had best start out with the cheerful
theory that a “square meal” is due to any creature that
is strong enough or cunning enough to get it; and that
it is a futile waste of sensibilities to sympathize with the
meal.

106 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

To return to our mother builder: her work is by
no means done when she has finished one house, for
she builds several. She sometimes places three or four
together along one twig; sometimes she seems to get
tired, and we find two neighboring jugs, one much
smaller than the other. Late in summer we find
these jugs with holes in their sides, showing where
the adults have made their escape from the dark, safe
homes. But whenever we find these cunning little
structures we always pause to admire them and yield
our tribute of praise to the clever mother mason that
built them.

Fic. 35. ‘‘ A raspberry bramble, low trailing and graceful.”

VI
th THE STORY WE LOVE BEST

BRANCH of sumac with its drum-
major plumes, a bough of elder
®, bending under its load of dark-
“S hued berries, a raspberry bramble,
low trailing and graceful; these
were my trophies from woodland
one sunny October afternoon, and to the uninitiated they
doubtless would seem but random and commonplace
mementos of an autumn ramble. But these branches,
seemingly uninteresting and aimlessly gathered, have
been the scenes of great toil, brave deeds, faithful devo-
tion, and also, alas, of treachery and tragedy. I will
relate to you the history revealed by these broken
boughs —a history to discover which has required
many patient hours of watching by oe that loved
the work.

One morning last May, had you been watching, you
might have seen a little insect, not more than a fourth
of an inch long flitting about these branches, her body
metallic blue, and her four gauzy wings flashing in the
108

THE STORY WE LOVE BEST 109

sunlight. Had you noted her then, you would have
thought her created only for the enjoyment of a bright
spring day. Little would you have dreamed of the
strength of purpose and the power of endurance bound
up in that wee body. You perhaps would have scarcely
detected that she belonged to a family noted for perse-
verance and industry. Yet, despite her diminutive size,
and metallic colors, she is as truly a bee as the clumsiest
bumblebee that ever hummed in the clover. She
belongs especially, however, to the group of carpenter
bees; she has a pretty scientific name, Ceratina dupla,
that seems quite in keeping with her dainty personality.
Her popular name is simply the “ Little Carpenter Bee.”

However, very little cares she by what Latin name
mortal man has chosen to call her, for weighty responsi-
bilities rest upon her mind this bright May morning;
and so she hunts until she finds some broken twig of
elder or sumac which permits her to come into direct
contact with the pith of the plant. Then our heroine,
with the aid of her mandibles or jaws, commences to
excavate a tunnel in the branch by removing the pith
mouthful by mouthful. Very carefully is the work
done, the pith being neatly cut, so that the walls of the
tunnel are left straight and smooth. To bring her
undertaking within our comprehension we might compare
her to a man who should attempt to dig a well three or

110 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

four feet wide and two hundred feet deep, and with no
tools except his hands with which to remove the earth.

The tunnel of the Ceratina is about one-eighth of an
inch in diameter, and often as much as eight or ten
inches in depth. But when our little bee is through
excavating her tunnel and has finished it with all the
nicety prompted by her own fine sense of the fitness of
things, she has really but begun her summer’s work.
Her next task combines pleasure and duty, for it takes
her into the fields to gather pollen from the flowers.
This she carries little by little to the tunnel; but it
requires many trips back and forth before she has
packed the bottom of the nest with pollen to the depth
of a quarter of an inch. This done she deposits upon it
a tiny white egg; and then she proceeds to build a
partition above by gluing together bits of pith and
other suitable material with a glue which she always
keeps on hand, or rather in mouth, for the purpose.
This partition is fastened firmly to the sides of the
tunnel and is about one-tenth of an inch thick; it
serves as a roof for the first cell and as a floor for the
next. Then the process is repeated; she gathers more
pollen, lays another egg, builds another partition, and so
on, until the tunnel is filled to within an inch or so of
the opening; the last egg is thus necessarily deposited
many days after the first one.

THE STORY WE LOVE BEST 111

Thus, you see, this matron has her family in an apart-
ment house, each child occupying an entire flat (Fig. 36).
Then there comes a time of rest for the industrious little
mother; for her next duty is to remain quiet and wait

for her family
to grow up. But
her fidelity is
unfailmg; the
space left empty
at the top of the
tunnel serves as
a vestibule to
her dwelling,
and there she
waits and
watches over
her home.
While she is
guarding the
door let us take
a peep into the

3 He : aaa |

Fic. 86. Little Carpenter Bee and her Nest.

first cell and see what is taking place there. From

the egg there

hatches a minute, white, footless

larva which immediately falls to eating the pollen pro-
vided by its thoughtful mother. On this food it thrives
and grows, until it is a quarter of an inch long; by this

112 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

time, probably, it has consumed all the pollen in the
cell; however the mother bee’s instinct does not seem to
be infallible in this particular, for sometimes she provides
more food than her offspring needs. After the larva has
thus reached its full growth, it becomes rigid and turns
darker in color, and queer-looking seams and excres-
cences appear upon it; these are the cases in which its
legs and wings are developing; in short, it becomes a
pupa. After remaining in this state some time the pupa
skin bursts open, and a full-fledged bee appears, resem-
bling its mother in size, color, and general aspect.
Meanwhile, the patient mother, who has not shared our
privilege of peeping into the cells, knows nothing of
what has happened therein, unless, perchance, she
remembers her own larvahood. Her experience is a
novel one, for her first-born is the last one of the brood
that she beholds. Patience is taught to these creatures
as an early lesson; for, of course, the bee that hatches
from the first-laid egg reaches maturity soonest. So
the first experience of the eldest of the Ceratina family
is to wait until its younger brothers and sisters above
it have grown up. We may imagine that this idle
waiting is rather tedious to a little creature with
brand new wings which it is longing to spread in the
sunshine.

The next lesson that our young Ceratina must learn

THE STORY WE LOVE BEST 113

is to work. For, when the youngest of the brood has
reached maturity, each one in the nest begins to work
its way upward toward the door by tearing down the
partition above it and pushing the particles of waste
material down toward the bottom of the nest. This ar-
rangement is a very comfortable one for the youngest,
which has only one partition between him and _ his
mother. But it is not nearly so pleasant for the eldest,
which had not only the longest time to wait but now
has most work to do; for he must push his way up
through the débris of all the partitions above him.
It reveals a funny sight to open a Ceratina nest after
the material of the partitions has all been stowed away
in the bottom of the tunnel. There are all the bees —
sometimes as many as fourteen — packed in as closely
as possible, each with its head toward the opening, and
braced against the heels, so to speak, of its next
younger brother; for nature teaches them to face
toward the door that leads out into the world. Finally,
the sentinel mother, having become satisfied that all
are ready, leads her children in their first flight in the
sunshine.

Later the remains of the partitions are removed,
and the nest is thus made ready for another brood.
Sometimes the whole grown-up family is found in a
nest thus cleaned, which would indicate that the young

114 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

bees dutifully lend their mother a helping mandible in
house cleaning and in making the home attractive.
And they doubtless find it pleasant to linger about
the old homestead and make it their abiding-place until
they feel capable of setting up establishments of their
own. This is certainly true of the fall brood. These
children of the autumn, when the days become cool,
crawl into the clean nest, head downward, one after an-
other, and tuck themselves in as cosy as cosy can be,
and just go to sleep and stay asleep until the bright
May sunshine calls to them through the open door and
tells them to wake up and go to work. I have often
wondered if this long winter’s sleep were not brightened
by dreams of sunlight and flowers. How do we know
that this is not the bee’s way of spending the winter in
Florida ?

Thus we have learned the main facts in the life of
our little Ceratina, supposing that her life has been
fortunate from egg to motherhood. But in our studies
of these hidden homes we find records of struggles and
tragedies and thus learn that our tiny friend has many
enemies always watching for an opportunity to injure
her and hers. Among these foes are some of her own
depraved and lazy relatives who certainly ought to have
better manners and morals. Other species of bees, and
some wasps, which build their nests in the hollow stalks

THE STORY WE LOVE BEST 115

of plants, take advantage of the tunnel excavated by
Ceratina, and drive her away before her nest is finished
and take possession of her home. We may safely be-
lieve that the plucky little bee would not submit to
such an outrage without vigorous remonstrance; and
doubtless on such occasions there are duels fought which
equal in bravery and ferocity any fought by Knights
Errant of old.

There are still other enemies of the Ceratina too
mean and cowardly to achieve their objects by fair
fight. One of these, a light and airy insect, with
cimeter-shaped body, belongs to the Jchnewmonide, a
family noted for deceitfulness, treachery, and blood-
thirstiness. This designing creature loiters about and
watches the Ceratina building her nest. When the
busy builder has filled a cell with pollen, and laid an
egg upon it, and has departed to seek materials for a
partition, the ichneumon sneaks in and lays one of her
eggs there, too; so when the bee comes back she un-
consciously walls in with her child its deadliest foe.
When the young bee is nearly grown, the ichneumon
egg hatches into a voracious little grub, which evi-
dently looks upon the fat bee-larva as choice beefsteak.
It falls at once to eating the helpless creature, which
conveniently yields sufficient food to nourish the inter-
loper until it completes its growth. Then the ichneu-

116 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

mon spins a beautiful silken cocoon about itself and
with calm effrontery changes to a pupa. In this state
it waits until the bees above it have matured and de-
parted, and then it issues, a full-fledged ichneumon, and
flies out into the world to perpetuate the hereditary
tricks of its family. We found one of these ichneumon
cocoons in the middle cell of a Ceratina nest. Only
one of the mature bees was found in the tunnel below
the cocoon, and it had its head pointed downward, thus
telling, as plainly as words could have told, that, dis-
gusted with the creature it found obstructing its upward
pathway, it had turned about with a firm intention to
dig out by way of China, if necessary. Undoubtedly,
many bees, which escape being eaten by the parasite,
die thus from imprisonment.

This completes the record of all we discovered dur-
ing one summer about the Ceratina. It is difficult to
express In mere words how this beautiful little creature
won our hearts. Just the sight of her has always been
a joy to us since; to us she is something more than a
mere creature of instinct; she is a bee of character.
Our last glimpse of her was in November, when we
found a family of eight in a clean nest, one behind the
other, head downward, packed away snugly for the
winter. The bee in the most exposed position next to
the door—the bee last to seek shelter after all the

THE STORY WE LOVE BEST 117

others were safely housed —was the faithful little
mother. We knew her because her wings were frayed
and worn by her many flights and severe toil. In vain
would the voices of the coming May call her to a life
of sunshine and blue sky, for her poor wings could
carry her but a little way, and she would never again
gather the pollen from willing flowers. But there she
was, still on guard, still yielding the last energies of
her ebbing life in unselfish devotion to her home and
family.

Fic. 87. A Basswood Tree.

VII
A DWELLER IN TENTS

2Y ) KAR one of my favorite woodland
paths stands a young basswood
tree. Every summer, during the
months of July and August, this
tree presents a very strange and, if
truth be told, a decidedly dishey-
elled appearance. At first glance it would seem as
though each individual leaf had become dissatisfied with
its form and had concluded to remodel itself according to
its own caprice. Close inspection reveals but few leaves
on the entire tree that retain their normal shape; and
what is true of this tree is, I fear, true of many
basswood trees each summer throughout the northern
United States. ;

The cause of this ragged appearance of these hand-
some trees is, however, not to be attributed to rebellion
and anarchy on the part of the leaves. The real agent
is a lively little “worm,” which cuts the leaf half

across and makes the flap into a roll, wherein he lives
119

120 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

and feeds, safe from the sharp eyes of hungry birds
and from the vicissitudes of rain and wind.

This little householder has no doorplate to announce
his name to the world; possibly because his house
would afford scant room for the dignified name Pan-
tographa limata. From this omission on his part to
vaunt his real name he is commonly called the “ Bass-
wood Leaf-roller,” that being our rather crude way of
- distinguishing his caterpillarship

from others of his kind which take

possession of our forests in happy
summer time.

One August day I plucked one of
these rolled leaves with the intent of —
studying the inmate (Fig. 38). I
found the little tent-ropes of silk
that fastened the roll down to the
leaf were quite strong, requiring

Fic. 38. A Basswood e¢onscious effort to tear them asunder
Leaf rolled into Tents. 3

as I made my way into the green
tube. It was not until the leaf was entirely un-
rolled that I discovered the tenant. He was a hand-
some little creature according to caterpillar standards
of beauty (Fig. 39); his green body had an opalescent
sheen that was most gemlike; and his head and thorax
were vividly, aggressively black and shining. Notwith-

A DWELLER IN TENTS 121

standing my admiring glances he was not at all pleased
to make my acquaintance and evinced his displeasure
by twisting and wriggling most spitefully. He hurried
this way and that, never taking the trouble to turn
around, for he was quite as adept in “backing” as he
was in going forward.

Finally he buried his head under a corner of the
leaf and remained motionless. Evidently the beautiful
philosophy of the ostrich was his also.
However, he was soon made aware of the
fallacy of this reasoning, for I proceeded to
examine him in detail through my lens. I
noted the shining tubercles, six on each
segment, as seen from above, four in front
and two behind, each one adorned with a | -
bristle. I noted the alertness of the highly Fis 3% The

Tent-dweller.
polished black head and the thoracic shield
shining like ebony. I was interested to find that his
six true feet were apparently encased in patent
leathers, after the most approved and latest fashion in

gentlemen’s boots.

I found him so interesting that I rolled him up in
his leaf and took him home and placed him in a
box, intending to sketch him very soon. Alas, must
I confess it? That very day I began a new and
absorbing piece of work that crowded out all thoughts

122 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

- not relating to it, and I forgot all about my little
leaf-roller for a week. I suddenly remembered him
with a pang of remorse and hastened to him. I fully
expected to find my prisoner a wasted corpse. But
no! he had fastened his broken tent down again
with silken ropes; then, finding the pasturage getting
dry, had abandoned his old home and folded over
and fastened a corner of the leaf, im vain hope of
finding there fresher food. In this lesser tent I found
him a little pale, it is true, but with spirit still un-
daunted. He greeted me with a spiteful jerk; this
time his scornful rejection of my advances seemed Jjusti-
fied. I sent immediately for fresh leaves and trans-
ferred him to one of them. In a very short time he
had folded an edge of the leaf over himself and secured
it with a web of silk. But he had concluded, evidently,
that eating was not a safe indulgence in this uncertain
world, for he refused to take even a nibble from his
new pasture. It may be, however, that he had so
far matured that he no longer needed food; possibly
he was ready to seek a nook under leaves or earth in
which to spend the winter, and was meditating upon
the fact that the hand of fate which swept him from
his: native tree had placed him beyond the reach of
earth in which to hide.

I first made a full-length portrait of him; a per-

A DWELLER IN TENTS 123

formance on my part which he manifestly regarded as
an unpardonable liberty. I then made a detailed study
of the head and thorax (Fig. 40).
To do this I placed him in a watch-
glass, while I studied him through
a compound microscope. While I
looked he lifted his second booted ,, ae
leg in a deprecating way as if to fie. 40. Head and Two
say, “Is there then in this wide Gaede Mites
world no justice to be meted out to ,
mortals who outrage the rights and persons of innocent
caterpillars ?”’

I tried to put on paper this deprecatory attitude, but
it was too subtle for my clumsy powers of delineation.
In fact, he was from first to last a very bad “sitter” and
very exhausting to the artist’s patience. However, he
was well worth the trouble he cost, for he was as inter-
esting as a harlequin in his vivid costume of black and
green. The black face was made grotesque by ten
little eyes of assorted sizes, placed in circles, each one
shining like an opal. His black legs were adorned at
the joints with what a costumer would call “slashes”
that revealed a lining of green; on the segment nearest
the body the black band was cut into gay points.

When I finished the sketch I rolled him in his
leaf and took him out into the woods. Then, asking

124 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

his pardon for inconveniencing him, wishing him a com-
fortable winter, a successful pupahood in the spring,
and a final glorification ito
mothhood in June, I placed him
under his own basswood tree.

The adult of Pantographa
limata is a very pretty moth, with
wings of delicate buff marked with
olive-green. There is a beautiful
purplish iridescence to the olive-
green, which is a delight to the eye that loves delicate,
suggestive color.

The interesting thing about this species from a sci-
entific standpoint is that it has broken away from
family traditions and become a leaf-roller. Most of the
leaf-rolling caterpillars belong to the Tortricina, al-
though rarely they are found in other families. Our
little friend belongs to the Pyralidina, and has devel-
oped his. leaf-rolling habit entirely independent of his
ancestors or near relatives. If the individual which
I studied fairly represents the species, I am not sur-
prised at this original line of development; for in all
my dealing with insect kind I have never met one of
the “little brothers” who knew his own mind more
clearly and conclusively than the subject of this sketch.

Fie. 41. Moth of the Bass-
wood Leaf-roller.

A TACTFUL MOTHER

EVERYWHERE in the world the wisest mothers are
those who do all in their power to make their children
good. The most successful method of doing this, I
suppose, is to make it easier for children to be good
than to be bad, by removing the sources of tempta-
tions to naughtiness. The little mother of this story
has a wonderful device of this sort by which she controls
her naturally selfish and greedy family.

This mother is a pretty, tiny creature, dainty enough
to belong to the court of a fairy queen. She has green
wings about a half inch in length, and all through them
runs a network of darker green veins. No lady ever
dressed for a ball in a prettier combination of gauze
and lace than this little creature wears every day. Her
slender body is also pale green, and her antenne are

brown; but her greatest beauty lies in a pair of large
125

126 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

eyes that shine and glow like liquid gold. As much
praise cannot be given to the perfume she affects as
to her personal appearance; many a person who has
captured this delicate creature has been surprised at the
disagreeable odor she exhaled. However, the very
purpose of this questionable perfume is to discourage
obtrusive people and birds from becoming too familiar
with her. Because of her beauty she has been called
“Lace-wing ” and “Golden-Eyes” by her admirers, but
her scientific name is Chrysopa, and her family is called
the Chrysopine. —

We might naturally infer that such a lovely mother
would have most attractive children, but this is far
from true. The young of Madam Lace-wing are short-
legged, spindle-shaped, sturdy little fellows, with no
signs of wings but with great sickle-shaped jaws. Now
the form of insect jaws is the unfailing index of insect
character; when they are sharp pointed and huge, as
in this case, they mean death and destruction to any
smaller insect unfortunate enough to cross the path
of their owner. The more common prey of the young
Chrysopa are the aphids or plant-lice; so destructive
to the aphis are these bloodthirsty creatures that they
are known as aphis-lions. Although we may not look
with pleasure on such wholesale slaughter, yet we must
confess that we owe the aphis-lions a vote of thanks for

Fic. 42. Lace-wing Fly, her Eggs, Larva, and Cocoon.

128 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

their work in destroying plant-lice which infest almost
every plant and tree that we try to cultivate and which
are the inveterate foes of our roses.

However, there is little virtue in the intentions of
the aphis-lon. His highest aspiration is to find some-
thing that he may eat; and not alone aphids but
every insect egg that he finds and every insect that
he can conquer helps to fill his insatiable little stomach.
His method of killmg his prey is peculiar. Each of his
sickle-shaped jaws is composed of a mandible, with a
groove along its entire length and a maxilla fitting
over this groove, so as to make a tube one end of which
opens at the tip of the jaw and the other opening in
the creature's mouth. When he catches an aphid, he
thrusts these long, hollow weapons into its soft body
and lifts it high in the air, as if drmking a bumper,
while he sucks its blood through his tubular jaws
as a man would drink lemonade through two straws.

Now we come to the problem that the mother Lace-
wing had to solve: If she merely laid her eggs on the
leaf in a group, the earliest hatched larva, in hunting
for something to satisfy his first hunger, would surely
turn cannibal and make his first meal off his unhatched
brothers and sisters. Little mother Golden-eyes is not
so frivolous and silly as her transparent beauty might
suggest. She has wisdom to solve her perplexing

A TACTFUL MOTHER 129

problem satisfactorily, and this is her method: When
about to lay an egg she places first a minute drop of
sticky fluid on the surface of the leaf; this she spins
up into a slender thread by lifting it on the tip of her
abdomen as high as she can; the air dries the thread
quickly, and it is strong enough to sustain the egg
which she fastens on top of it. The result is that
each egg is supported a half inch above the surface of
the leaf by a hair-like pedicel. These groups of Chry-
sopa eggs are very pretty and are often mistaken for
patches of glistening white fungus upon leaves, for they
look more like the spore cases of fungi than like eggs.

When the eldest of the family breaks his shell, he
drops or scrambles down from his egg perch as best
he can, and in his immediate hunt for food wanders
harmlessly around the bases of the threads which sup-
port his unhatched brothers and sisters far above his
head and probably beyond his sight. His rapid-mov-
ing little legs take him soon far from his birthplace
to where unsuspecting aphids are pumping sap, and
then the slaughter begins unless, perchance, some ant
guardian averts the attack. Hach member of the
family in its turn follows his example and wanders
out into the great world beyond its native leaf, guilt-
less of fratricide. Yet if two aphislions meet there
is likely to be a trial of strength. I saw one once

130 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

try to drink the family blood flowing in a younger
brother’s body; he attempted at first to find a weak
place in the armor of his intended victim, but the latter
always turned and twisted in a way to present a horny
surface to his murderous brother and thus managed
finally to escape, though he certainly showed evidences
of genuine fright.

After a season of larval imbibing each aphis-lion rolls
itself up in a little ba]l and weaves around itself a thick
coat of glistening white silk, thus making a cocoon that
looks like a seed-pearl fastened to a leaf. It is to be
hoped that during this period of voluntary seclusion
the recluse meditates upon the selfishness of its past
career and decides upon an entire reformation. This is
evidently the case; for, after a time, perhaps a whole
winter, it cuts a dainty, circular lid at the top of its
pearl-prison and emerges a creature no longer spindle
shaped and sickle jawed, but with wide, filmy wings
that have been folded and packed in the tiny cocoon.
In fact, the wonders which have been worked in that
pearly cell are greater than those wrought by any magi-
cian in fairy tale; for within its walls an ugly, greedy
aphis-lion has been changed to a beautiful, golden-eyed
lace-wing.

After studying this Chrysopa biography, one natu-
rally wonders how these golden-eyed mothers gained

A TACTFUL MOTHER 131

so much wisdom; how did they happen to think out
such a fine scheme? Scientists will answer that it was
not thought out at all, but has been brought about by
a certain fairy godmother called “Evolution.” They say
that long, long ago the Chrysopa ancestresses merely
fastened their eges to the leaf with a drop of sticky
fluid; and probably only a few of the young escaped
the fate of filling fraternal stomachs. But there were
some mothers which happened to secrete larger drops
or raised them by accident a little higher from the sur-
face of the leaf, and thus saved more of their children
from the cannibalistic attacks of the first-born; and
these offspring inherited this saving tendency to place
their eggs on pedicels. Thus, little by little, the habit
has been developed until we have a family, Chrysopine,
that lays eggs upon stalks, while all the Chrysopine
that knew no better than to lay their eggs on the sur-
face of the leaf were exterminated long ago through
their own foolishness and lack of foresight.

This is what evolutionists would say; and they
would also assure us that all insects perform all their
wise acts through inherited habit instead of through
wise thinking. However, I think it is a prettier theory
to believe that mother Lace-wing lays her eggs on stalks
just because she wishes her children to be good, and so
“leads them not into temptation.”

Fic. 48. The Haunts of the ‘‘ Water-sprite.”

IX
A SEINE MAKER

HERE is a certain stream I know
that begins as a brook, traversing
a high meadow sweet with clover
and white with daisies. It then
forsakes sunny heights and glides
| down a pine-covered hill, where
great roots interlace and hold
firm its banks; thence it tumbles down a slope beset
with birch and sumac, and finally, under some furry
young hemlocks that protect it from an “attacking
army of rainbows,” it takes a wild plunge to wider
levels below.

This brook, fed from living springs, is the theatre of
myriad life, and it was

“Down the golden-braided centre of its current swift and strong,”

that I first saw a quaint little fisherman that spreads
his nets for fry too small for our coarse eyes to see,
but which, nevertheless, prove all-sufficient for his
needs. Well is he named Hydropsyche, “the water-
sprite.”

138

134 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

Most skilfully he makes his snare. It is formed like
a dip-net and fastened with silk to a frame of leaves
or pebbles, so that its distended
mouth is directed up-stream.
Near the frame it consists of
fragments of vegetation woven
into a silken tapestry and is

z finished at the end with a bag

Fic. 44. A Seine and the Fish- of coarse, even mesh. The

erman’s Hut. :

regularity of this bit of netting

is beautiful to behold, and its use shows the cleverness

of the builder. This large mesh allows the water to

flow through freely, and thereby leave entangled in the

seine any little creature not small enough to pass

through. The mechanism of the structure is simple
and self regulating.

On the side of this tiny seine toward the current of
the stream is a little passage which leads to the seine-
builder’s house. This is a rather crudely constructed
tube made of sticks and stones fastened to the surface
of the stone with silk, and just large enough to fit its
occupant. Lying in his house, his alert head reaching
out in the passageway, our small fisherman needs only
to take a step or two to examine his haul and sate his

appetite.
This clever little artisan is a caterpillar hardly more

Fic. 45. The Wider Levels.

136 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

than a half inch in length when fully grown. In color
he is brownish or olive-green, and has three pairs of
true legs, which are longer than the legs usually vouch-
safed to caterpillars. He has black eyes which give
him a keen, alert expression of countenance when seen
through a lens. Along the lower surface of his body
are tiny tassels of thread, which are his tracheal gills
and enable him to breathe the oxygen mixed with the
swift-flowing water, so he does not have to rise to the
surface to take breath. His body bears at the rear end
a pair of stout hooks. It is by means of these that he
grasps his silken ropes and is not swept away down-
stream by the swift current. He loves to spread his
nets on the very brink of waterfalls, and there they
remain long after he has abandoned them, making the
rock dark with the refuse caught in their cunning
meshes.

When the fisherman has found in his nets, day after
day, sufficient sustenance to complete his growth he asks
no more of the kindly waters but retires to his shabby
house, patches it up, mayhap, making it stronger and
more torrent-proof; and he builds a grating of silk at
either end which allows the water to pass through
freely, bringing oxygen for breathing, but carefully
excludes small enemies that might find their way in
through an unbarred door. Thus protected, he changes

A SEINE MAKER 137 ©

to a pupa. After a time he bursts the pupa skin, tears
down the bars at the door, and shoots like an arrow to
the surface of the stream. In this upward course he
swims with his long legs and holds his wings folded
tightly upon his back. The instant he reaches the
surface the wings unfold like magic and bear him away
into a new and unknown medium.

No more fundamental change of habit can be
imagined. This creature that has lived his whole life
beneath the surface of the water, clinging to perilous
brinks with his anchoring hooks, making and spreading
his nets on slippery, submerged rocks, suddenly in a
second changes to a true denizen of the air. For this
he is now equipped with soft, brown, leathery wings,
folded roof-like over his back; and with long thread-
like antenne that continually touch all things within
their reach with delicate inquisitiveness; and with long,
slender legs, stockinged in ornate hairs of which any
moth might be justly proud.

His life in the air is short and sweet. Hiding him-
self during the garish day he comes out in the shadowy
night and seeks his mate. She may have been his
nearest neighbor at the bottom of the stream, but she
was nothing to him then. Now she is all there is of
life’s happiness. As soon as he, after brief possession,
loses her, he seems to realize there is naught else worth

138 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

living for, and he dashes toward the first light that
affords him opportunity for self-immolation. Does he
perchance regard it as some near star, whereon he may
find another incarnation? With dazzled eyes he flings
himself into it and speedily experiences the ecstasy
of martyrdom, yielding with mad joy his body and
delicate wings to brighten for one instant the sacrificial
flame.

Fic. 46. The Home Tree of Little Hermit Brother.

Xx

HERMIT AND TROUBADOUR
A June Story ror Junior NATURALISTS

N far Thibet exists a class of
Buddhist monks who are
hermits and who dwell in
caves. I was told about
these strange people by a
senior naturalist, who has
. spent his life gomg around
' the world and finding the
countries upon it as easily as you junior naturalists
find the same countries on the globe in the schoolroom.
A real naturalist is never contented with maps of places
and pictures of things, but always desires to see the
places and things themselves.

The senior naturalist told me that he found Thibet
a dreary land inhabited by queer people; and the
hermit monks were the queerest of all. Hach one
dwelt in his solitary cave, ate very little, and worked
not at all, but spent his time in thought. Could we
140

HERMIT AND TROUBADOUR 141

read his thoughts we would be none the wiser, since
they are only mysterious thoughts about mysterious
things.

. Now it is a surprising fact that we have hermits of
similar habits in America; only our hermits are a little
people who dress in white garb and live in cells under-
ground; they also eat little and work not at all and
probably meditate upon mysteries. However, they are
equipped with six legs, while the monks of Thibet have
only two —a difference of little importance, since none
of them travel far from their caves.

In order that you may know the mysterious lives of
these American hermits, I will relate to you the history
of one of them.

Seventeen years ago this June, when perhaps the
parents of some of the junior naturalists were them-
selves school children, a cicada mother made with her
ovipositor a little slit or cavity in an elm twig, and m
this slit placed in very neat order two rows of eggs.
Six weeks later there hatched from one of these eggs
a pale, lively, little creature, that to the naked eye
looked like a tiny white ant. However, if we could
have examined him through a lens, we would have
found him very different from an ant; for his two front
legs were shaped somewhat like lobsters’ big claws, and
instead of jaws like an ant’s he simply had a long beak

142 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

that was hollow like a tube. After he came out of his
egg he ran about the tree and seemed interested in
everything he saw for a time. Then, suddenly, he went
to the side of a limb and deliberately fell off. To his
little eyes the ground below was invisible; so our
small cicada showed great faith when he practically
jumped off the edge of his world into space. He was
such a speck of a creature that the breeze took him and
lifted him gently down, as if he were the petal of a
flower, and he alighted on the earth unhurt and probably
much delighted with his sail through the air. At once
he commenced hunting for some little crevice in the
earth; and when he found it he went to the bottom
of it and with his shovel-like forefeet began digging
downward. I wonder if he stopped to give a last look
at sky, sunshine, and the beautiful green world before
he bade them good-by for seventeen long years. If so,
he did it hurriedly, for he was intent upon reaching
something to eat. This he finally found a short dis-
tance below the surface of the ground in the shape of
a juicy rootlet of the great tree above. Into this he
inserted his beak and began to take the sap as we take
lemonade through a straw. He made a little cell
around himself, and then he found existence quite bliss-
ful. He ate very little and grew very slowly, and
there was no perceptible change in him for about a

HERMIT AND TROUBADOUR 143

year; then he shed his skin for the first time and thus,
insect-wise, grew larger. After a time he dug another
cell near another rootlet deeper in the ground; but he
never exerted himself more than was necessary to
obtain the little food that he needed. This idle life he
found entirely satisfactory, and the days grew into
months and the months into years. Only six times in
the seventeen years did our hermit change his clothes;
and this was each time a necessity, since they had
become too small. Judging from what the senior
naturalist told me, I think this is six times more than
a Thibetan hermit changes his clothes in the same length
of time.

What may be the meditations of a little hermit
cicada during all these years we cannot even imagine.
If any of the junior naturalists ever find out the secret,
they will be very popular indeed with the scientific men
called psychologists. However, if we may judge by
actions, the sixteenth summer after our hermit buried
himself he began to feel stirring in his bosom aspirations
toward a higher life. He surely had no memory of the
beautiful world he had abandoned in his babyhood, but
he became suddenly possessed with a desire to climb
upward and began digging his way toward the light. It
might prove a long journey through the hard earth ; for
during the many years he may have reached the depth

144 WAYS OF THE SIX—-FOOTED

of nearly two feet. He is now as industrious as he was
shiftless before, and it takes him only a few weeks to
climb out of the depths into which he had fallen
through nearly seventeen years of inertia. If it should
chance that he reaches the surface of the ground before
he is ready to enjoy life, he hits upon a device for con-
tinuing his way upward without danger to himself.
Sometimes his fellows have been known to crawl out of
their burrows and seek safety under logs and stakes
until the time came to gain their wings. But this is a
very dangerous proceeding, since there are many watch-
ful eyes in forests which belong to creatures who are
very fond of bits of soft white meat. So our cicada, still
a hermit, may build him a tall cell out of mud above
ground. How he builds this “hut,” “cone,” or “ tur-
ret,” as it is variously called, we do not know, but it is
often two inches in height, and he keeps himself in the
top of it. Under ordinary circumstances our cicada
would not build a hut but remain in his burrow.

Finally there comes a fateful evening when, as soon as
the sun has set, he claws his way through the top of his
mud turret or out of his burrow and looks about him
for further means of gratifying his ambitions to climb.
A bush, a tree, the highest thing within his range of vis-
ion, attracts his attention, and he hurries toward it. It
may be he finds himself in company with many of his

HERMIT AND TROUBADOUR 145

kind, hurrying toward the same goal, but they are of no
interest to him as yet. Like the youth in the famous
poem, “ Excelsior” is his motto, and he heeds no invita-
tion to tarry. When he reaches the highest place within
his ken he places himself, probably back downward,
on some branch or twig and takes a firm hold with all
of his six pairs of claws and keeps very still for a time.
Then his skeleton nymph-skin breaks open at the back,
and there pushes out of it a strange creature, long and
white, except for two black spots upon his back; on he
comes until only the tip of his body remains in the old
nymph-skin; then he reaches forward and grasps the
twig with his soft, new legs and pulls himself entirely
clear from the old hermit garb. At once his wings
begin to grow; at first they are mere pads on his back,
but they soon expand until they cover his body and
are flat like those of a miller. The many veins in the
wings are white, and he keeps the wings fluttering in
order that they may harden soon. If, in the moonlight
of some June evening, a junior naturalist should see a
tree covered with cicadas at this stage, he would think
it had suddenly blossomed into beautiful, white, flutter-
ing flowers.

As the night wears on, the color of our hero changes
and his wings harden, until when the sun rises we be-
hold him in the glory of a black uniform, with facings

146 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

of orange and with beautiful glassy wings folded roof-
like above his body (Fig. 47). Great is the change
wrought in his appearance during this one momentous
night, and greater still the change wrought in his
habits! Good-by now to cowl and robe. The gay
knight in armor that wore them has thrown them aside
and left them clinging like
a ghost of a hermit to the
spot where they were aban-
doned.

The knight is not alone ;
there are thousands of his
kind about him—a fact
Gy » which he realizes with great
Fic. 47. ‘* Good-by now to cowl and joy. So happy is he that

sabe” he feels as if he must burst
if he does not find some adequate means for expressing
his happiness in this beautiful world of sunshine. Then
suddenly he finds in himself the means of expression
and bursts into song. Yet, it is not a song exactly, for
he is a drummer rather than a singer. On his body,
just behind each of his hind wings, is a kettledrum.
The head to this drum is of parchment thrown into
folds and may be seen with a lens if you lift his wings
and look closely. Instead of drumsticks he uses
a pair of strong muscles to throw the membranes

HERMIT AND TROUBADOUR 147

- into vibration, and there is a complex arrangement of
cavities and sounding-boards around these drum-heads,
so that the noise he gives off is a great one indeed for
a fellow of his size. So fond is he of making music
that he has no time to eat or to do aught else but to
sound rolls all the sunshmy day. He is not the
only musician on the tree; there are many others, and
they all join in a swelling chorus that has been described
as a roar like that made by the “rushing of a strong
wind through the trees.”

If our cicada could talk to one of you junior natu-
ralists he would tell you that there was a good reason
for all this music. He would explain that only the
men of the cicada world possess drums, and that the
object and reason of all their music was the entertain-
ment of the lady cicadas, who are not only very fond
of this drumming but are good critics of cicada music
as well. He would perhaps tell you also that he had
his eye on a certain graceful maiden perched on the
leaf between him and the sun; but she, on the other
hand, seemed to give about equal attention to him and
three other drummers situated near by. Excited by the
competition and by her indifference he rattled his drum
faster and faster until he arose to the heights of cicada
melody and harmony that left his rivals far behind.
Then the lady of his choice listened spellbound and

148 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED

pronounced him the greatest of all musicians, and thus
he won his bride. However, we may safely predict that
their wedded life will be too full of happiness to last.
After a few weeks the sunshine, the music, the happi-
ness of wooing and winning will prove too much for
our hero, and one day he will beat his drum in a last
mad ecstasy and fall to earth and die from happy
exhaustion. His little wife may survive him only long
enough to cut some slits in some of the twigs of the
home tree and place in them rows of eggs from which
shall develop a family of hermits which shall come
forth and fill the world with their music seventeen
years hence, when our junior naturalists are men and
women grown.

There are many broods of the cicadas in the United
States, so that they appear in different localities in dif-
ferent years. New York State has five well-marked
broods: one in the western counties is due in 1917; a
large brood on Long Island and near Rochester will
appear in 1919; another on Long Island in 1906; an-
other in the Hudson River Valley in 1911. The differ-
ent appearances of some of these broods have been
noted and studied for more than a century.

Thus we know that these little hermit brothers
belong to one of America’s most ancient races. It
will always be interesting for any junior naturalist

HERMIT AND TROUBADOUR 149

who has the opportunity to witness the issuing of one
of these broods to count back and find how few genera-
tions of them have passed since only Indians listened
when they came forth from their caves and beat out
their last brief days in happy cicadan minstrelsy.

Akers, Elizabeth, 16, 19.
Amazons, 79, 82, 83.
Anacreon, 12,
Anosia plexippus, 48-54.
Ants, 59-94,
Agricultural, 86.
Honey, 72.
Leaf-cutter, 72.
White, 56, 61, 71, 78.
Aphids, 76, 77, 126.
Aphis-lion, 126-130.

Basilarchia archippus, 39-54.
Basswood, 37, 38.

Basswood Leaf-roller, 119-124.

Battles, 79, 83, 84.
Bees, 4, 9, 55-94.

Carpenter, Little, 108-117.
Beetles, 4.
Bryant, Wm. C., 7, 9.
Butterflies, 4, 30, 39-54.
Byron, Lord, 13.

Caddice-fly, 133-138.
Caddice-worm, 133-138.
Carolina Locust, 15.
Cement Maker, 97-101.
Ceratina dupla, 108-117.
Chrysopa, 125-131.
Cicada, 4, 10, 12, 13.
septendecem, 140-149.
tibicen, 10-12.

Communal Habitations, 53, 63, 81,

84-88.
Wealth, 73.

INDEX

Corn-root Plant-louse, 77.
Cows, Ant’s, 76, 77.
Cricket, 4, 2U-27.

Dissosteira Carolina, 15.

Division of Labor, 57, 66, 72.

Dog-day Harvest-fly, 10-12.
Dragonflies, 4.

Drones, 62, 64.

Drummers, 11, 12, 14, 146.
Dweller in Tents, A, 119.

Ears, Insect’s, 2, 16, 20, 24.
Elder, 108.

Elm, 139, 141.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 10.
Eumenes fraterna, 101-106.

Fabre, J.-H., 103.
Fiddlers, 14, 27.
Fireflies, 4.

Fitch, Dr. Asa, 35,
Flies, 4-7.

Fungi, 72.

Golden-eyes, 125-131.
Grandfather Graybeard, 29.
Grasshoppers, 4, 14-17.

Hermit and Troubadour, 140-149.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 18.
Homer, 12.

Hunt, Leigh, 14, 21.
Hydropsyche, 133-138.

Hymenoptera, 4, 9, 10, 55-94, 96-117.

161

152

Ichneumon, 115, 116.

Identity of Interests, 88.

Incurvaria acerifoliella, 29-38.

Individualism, as taught by the Bees,
92.

Insect Music, 3-27, 146.

Jug Builder, The, 101-106.

Katydid, 4, 18.
Keats, John, 14.

Lace-wing Fly, 125-131.
Lintner, Dr. J. A., 35.

Little Carpenter Bee, 108-117.
Love-singers, 10-27.
Lyreman, The, 10-13.

Maple Leaf-cutter, 29-38.

Mayer, Prof. A. M., 8.

Military Forces, 78.

Milkweed, 49.

Minnesingers, 10.

Monarch Butterfly, 48-54.

Mosquito, 7, 8.

Moths, 4, 32, 85, 124, 137.

Mud Dauber, 97-101.

Musical Organs, Flies and Bees, 6;
Cicada, 11, 146; Grasshopper,
14, 18; Katydid, 20; Cricket,
22.

Nomad, A Little, 29.

Orchestra, Insect, 26, 27.
Orthoptera, 14-26.

Pantographa limata, 119-124.
Pelopeus cementarius, 97-101.
Pipers, The, 6.

Plant-lice, 76, 77, 126.

INDEX

Poplar, 41.
Pyralidina, 124.

Queen Ants, 61.
Bee, 6, 57-61.

Raspberry, 108.
Riley, James Whitcomb, 15, 18.

Sanitation, 90.

Scudder, Dr., S. H., 39.

Seine Maker, A, 133.
Seventeen-year Locust, 140-149,
Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing, A, 39.
Slavery, 78, 84.

Snowy Tree-cricket, 25-27.
Socialism, The Perfect, 55-94.
Soldiers, 78, 79.

Spiders, 99.

Squirrel, 30.

Story we Love Best, The, 108,
Sumac, 108, 111.

Tactful Mother, A, 125.
Tennyson, Alfred, 6.
Termites, 56, 61, 71, 78.
Thread-waisted Wasps, 97.
Tiger Swallowtail, 30.
Tortricina, 124.

Two Mother Masons, 96-106.

Viceroy Butterfly, 89-51.
Virgil, 13.

War, 78, 88.

Wasps, 56, 73, 81, 85, 96-106, 114.
Water Sprite, 133.

White Ants, 56, 61, 71, 78.
Willow, 41.

Workers, 66.

Xenarchus, 13.